Star Defense review

There's been a seemingly endless pile of tower defense games that has accumulated in the past couple years. Star Defense is one of the gems that shines brighter than the rest of the pack.

Within a years time I've defended forests from monsters by placing towers in bushes, a town of ninjas from invading orange blobs, and have stopped several geometric shapes, pirate ships, tanks, and all sorts of invading attackers from breaking my shields, doors, or whatever their goal was. It's hard to make the genre of tower defense seem new and fresh. Star Defense from ngmoco has you protecting a series of planets from alien invasion. It's in fully rendered in 3-D and you will constantly be rotating the planets to place towers and modify your defenses against the invaders. It is the same thing every game in the genre does, but it does manage to breathe a bit of life into the genre.

In most games in this genre you always have full view of the map, your towers, and the incoming enemies. The planets you have to defend in this game are spherical or cubical orbs that do not allow full visibility of the entire map at all times. The enemies have a set path which makes it easier, but you will not know what's happening on the other side of the planet while you're viewing or placing towers on the part that is in view. They've limited the variety of towers and the number of times you can upgrade a tower to help with that. Taking into account the topography of the planet and the range of every tower is vital in this game. You are basically setting up the best defense for every area of one planet and moving to the next section returning to make minor updates.

If you like tower defense, you're going to love this game. In addition to the campaign mode, there is a challenge mode which will update you high scores on your Facebook page or Twitter feed. There are also achievements that will have you replaying portions of the game a few times if you feel the need to collect them all. The music is excellent and has a nice ambient feel to it that fits well with the setting of the game. If you own an iPhone you will no doubt be bombarded with an endless selection of tower defense. This is the one to play.

Grade A

Meta Grade 90