Sketchy Tower Defense (XBLI)

My Rating: 9/10
Xbox User Rating: 4/5

This is my first Xbox Live Indie review. From now on, if there is no bracketed tag in the title, the game can be assumed as PC or multi-platform. This is my first Xbox review and I plan on doing more for mainly arcade and indie in the near future, (XBLI) is for Xbox Live Indie (XBLA) is for Xbox Live Arcade. Now, to the review!

This game is simple, simple but fun and at 80 Microsoft points (roughly a buck) you definately get what you pay for.

Unlike some other Tower Defense games the maps are generally open and allow you to construct however you damn well please, the monsters move in a straight line to the castle at the opposite end of the map, some maps have two castles, others have three lines of monsters going after one castle. Either way, you have 10 life that you start with, each bad guy that makes it to one of your castles takes away one life.

I think the two major flaws of this game is that there is only a few maps and there is only endless mode, no pussy "yay, you beat the level" it's real man land, survival of the fittest...you know...for real men that sit around and play games all day...

But other than those two flaws this game still gets 9/10 because it's just that much fun for only a buck. There are special two player maps which are essentially VS maps, one player is working against the other. And then there is the normal maps, you play against the horde trying to get to your castle...OR you can have a buddy jump in and help you at any time (usually works best when there is more than one line of guys going to one castle).

All towers are upgradeable multiple times, there are damage and range boosters, air only towers, traps, basically anything you want in a good quality tower defense. Sure, the artwork is basic, all sketched on graph paper, but it's really fun and fully worth 80 points, I'd probably even get it for 160 points.

And now, screenshots!

Pakkuman's Defense

My Rating: 7/10

A pac-man clone mashed with tower defense, surprisingly good!

Normally I try and stay away from pac-man clones, but as I was reading about the games available in the Indie Buskers bundle, the concept of this game intrigued me for some reason. As I started playing I found that this game was actually fun! Finally, a real use for those things pac-man eats!

The game is simple, like pac-man, you must avoid the ghosts or die, and you pick up the little things scattered throughout the maze. Unlike pac-man, levels are randomly generated and ghosts will keep spawning at random (and in random spots) until you finish the level or die. You can build towers on the walls to shoot the ghosts to give you a chance to finish the level. Points are based on money left over first, and then kills.

I have not yet beat a level, but here's a picture of one I found to be a pain in the ass (I got stuck in the vertical corridor) Edit: I just made it to the second level, same type of symmetrical generation as the first, but different colored floor, and more ghosts.

As you can see from my screenshot, all levels are symmetrical

This game is available over at the Indie Buskers bundle Indiebuskers.net you can get the bundle for a buck.

Revenge of the Titans

My Rating: 8.5/10
Desura Community: 9/10

Revenge of the Titans is described as a Tower Defense with RTS elements, tower defense on wikipedia is described as an "RTS offshoot" (which is also how I classify tower defense) so for me, the way they describe the game was pretty strange until I started playing it.

What sets this tower defense apart from all others is two major points. The first point being that like in a normal RTS game you must gather resources. You do this by placing a gathering building near the crystals to mine them. The second point being there is a research system. Normal tower defense, once you get past the first level you unlock another tower, and possibly another after the next one and so on and so forth. In Revenge of the Titans, after each level you pick a technology or a building. Each building you can choose requires certain technologies researched, and some technologies give you bonuses to damage, armor penetration and such.

Mostly other than that it plays out like your standard tower defense, you spend your money (gained from pickups, killing enemies and mined resources) on buildings and your leftover resources (along with the level completion bonus) are carried over to the next level, so in this game, hoarding resources is actually a good thing as it will help you out later in harder levels.

I have only played about an hour of the game and have not seen all of the enemies yet, but there are armored enemies, enemies that seem to move by leaping then pausing, leaping then pausing, there are larger, stronger versions of enemies and there are boss enemies. There are probably other types of enemies in the game that I haven't come across yet (possibly flying enemies?).

All in all I have been really enjoying this game and would highly recommend it to any Tower Defense fan or someone looking to get into the genre.