A few months ago I reviewed ‘Demigod’, a decent game that attempted to copy the ‘Warcraft 3’ custom map, DoTA, and failed. This week I am reviewing ‘Defense Grid’, a game that tries to copy the ‘Warcraft 3’ Tower Defence custom maps, and succeeds beyond your wildest dreams.

The plot of ‘Defense Grid’, as with most games these days, is straightforward. A thousand years ago earth barely survived an alien invasion by deploying the titular defence grid. But a millennium of complacency has left the grid depleted and barely functional. So when the fresh invasion comes there is no one to stop it. No one but you and Tim Curry!

At least, I think it’s Tim Curry. It certainly sounds as if it is he who does the voice for the ancient, shell-shocked AI that attempts to train you and keep your spirits up as the alien horde advances.

Anyway, in ‘Defense Grid’ it is your job to deploy defensive towers that will, hopefully, prevent the attacking aliens from stealing the power cores of the various cities in which the action takes place. On the surface this sounds pretty boring, but it really isn’t. Hidden Path have managed to work enough variation and strategy into the game that it never gets stale.

One wouldn’t think that there is much strategy involved in just placing towers along a run path but there really is. Some maps are best dealt with by deploying a few, high level towers. Other maps require you to create mazes of towers that slow the enemy down. The tricky part is, of course, that you don’t know which is which. So, unlike many RTSs, in ‘Defense Grid’ you actually need to engage your brain.

The controls are laughably easy, the gameplay is straightforward and uncomplicated and the various challenges and achievements provide for a certain amount of replayability. But the best thing I can say about ‘Defense Grid’ is this: on Sunday night I could have been playing ‘Overlord 2’ or ‘Prototype’. Instead I was playing ‘Defense Grid’, and it was time well spent.

Scores

Game play (1 to 15)         14                           (93%)

Graphics (1 to 10)             7                              (70%)

Fun (1 to 15)                       14                           (93%)

Originality (1 to 10)          5                              (50%)

Bugs (0 to -20)                   0                              (totally bug free)

Total: (0-50)                        40                           80%