Akarios's Profile
Stat Summary
- Average Rating:5
- Helpful Votes:192
- Reviews Submitted:1
- First Review:May 15, 2012
- Most Recent Review:May 15, 2012
- Featured reviews0
Akarios's Review History
Island Defense
Protect the seven Citadels from the Dark Fleet!
Overall rating
5
/
5
192 of 201 found this review helpful
This is a specific genre of game... know what you're getting before judging
PostedMay 15, 2012
Akarios
fromBoston
Skill Level:Expert
Favorite Genre(s):Adventure, Hidden Object, Large File, Strategy, Puzzle
Fun Factor
4
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Storyline
4
/
5
A previous reviewer slammed this game as boring because he was hoping certain things would happen that didn't. For those who are like him, and don't know what the "Tower Defense" game mode is - here's a quick rundown. The game should be judged on its own merits inside its genre, and not downgraded due to false expectations.
Tower Defense games, like this one, involve eliminating waves of moving enemies that run through the maze-like game environment before they reach the end of the maze and accomplish their goal. Often the goal is to attack a vulnerable hot-spot, eliminate defenseless characters in some inner sanctum, or even move off screen and "access" whatever it was you were supposed to deny them access to.
You do this defending by purchasing and placing various powered "towers" along shorelines, hill tops, building tops, wherever the game has dictated you have to work with. All towers are auto-defense... meaning, they fire on their own without you controlling them. Some fire slowly and weakly, some fire slowly and powerfully... .some do the opposite and fire very rapidly but do minimal damage. Some often have higher or lower effectiveness against different enemy types with different vulnerabilities, so you have to mix up you towers appropriately. Once placed, a tower can often be upgraded later on as you acquire more funds, etc... The idea is to stay ahead of the enemies and forever maintain your towers to be able to stop their advances before they reach their goals.
The enemies move at different speeds and have varying degrees of health and defenses. You have to manage your labyrinth of auto-towers so that there are no huge gaps in your pathways and that there's no combination of enemies that can make it through alive.... For example, if a particularly massive wave of hundreds of fast moving enemies is coming, and all you have are slow, heavy damage producing towers, sure those slow cannons will obliterate the targets they shoot at very easily, but the sheer numbers of enemies slipping by between blasts will spell quick doom for you. You would have been better served also having a tower that shoots very quickly, but maybe not as much damage... or maybe another tower type that does area-effect damage (or "splash damage").
The strategy is in keeping pace with the challenges of the enemy waves... the fun is in identifying the choke points of each map to create the best killing fields, using strategy to mix and match various tower types, stay ahead of the waves, and enjoy watching your carefully thought-out and planned defensive lines take care of business with efficient and colorful ease.
Judge this game on THOSE merits.... not what you were hoping the game might be like, but didn't know.
I recommend this game!