A few days ago I reviewed FieldRunners, a game heavily based in the tower defense genre. I mentioned in that review that I had tried other tower defense games to give myself some perspective, and this was the only other iPhone app from that group.
TapDefense, of course, shares many similarities to FieldRunners, so I’ll be using that review as a base of comparison. If you haven’t read it and don’t know much about this genre, I urge you to read it or consult Wikipedia.
The first major difference in the game play between FieldRunners and TapDefense is that, like in most other tower defense games, enemies have a set track to follow, rather than the vast open area of FieldRunners. This, of course, prevents you from being able to herd enemies around, instead having to rely on the shear stopping power of your defenses to keep enemies from reaching your base (in this game Heaven, with the enemies marching from Hell). It was a bit of a disappointment at first, but I soon found that the challenge more than made up for this lack of depth.
The other, less drastic, change in game play from FieldRunners is the introduction of an interest rate. When you finish a round, you gain interest on the money you have left. This adds the pressure to save money to accumulate enough to pay for more powerful and upgraded towers faster, yet still building enough towers to not lose.
Tower types include the same types as FieldRunners, but with a more medieval feel: machine guns give way to arrows, missiles to cannons, and so forth. You also gain points throughout the game allowing you to research different tower types like storm (which figures damage by percentage rather than a set value) and the powerful earthquake tower that causes massive damage to nearby enemies when you shake your iPhone. Towers can also be upgraded.
While I still think FieldRunners is the better game, this one certainly can hold its own. Furthermore, the games have more than enough differences to allow them to each provide a unique experience. Since TapDefense is free (supported by very unobtrusive ads placed on the between round summary screens), it certainly deserves a chance.
January 5th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
I would definatly reccomend this app!