Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Get TreeTD With Some Fun Defense Gaming


The defense genre of gaming is one I thought would be hashed and rehashed by now. Originally limited to games where you defended a castle, there have been variations that have you defending gardens, redneck retreats, temples, cities, bowling alleys... and now, trees. Yes, trees.

This time, in TreeTD: Tower Defense, you set up your towers on, of all things, some branches. They sure seem pretty sturdy for the amount of firepower you can call up. The goal here is to take potshots at marble-like baddies as they roll down the limbs of the tree toward the roots. Lose enough lives and the game ends.

There's enough difference in your towers to make the gameplay interesting: there are Pebble Towers (stinky), Water, Lightning, Rock, Metal, Earth, and Fire. The elemental towers (Earth, Air, Fire, Water), like in the science they taught me in first grade, are each superior over one elemental form of bad guy. Earth beats Water enemies handily, Water beats Electric enemies, and so on. Metal and Rock? They beat everything, man. Metal fires really slowly and isn't that accurate, but it does monster damage when it hits something. One of the cool mechanics of this game is how some bullets roll along the tree limbs, and often hit something.

The playing area is huge, several screens high. There's a click-and-drag bar on the left you can use to jump down, but my 2006 computer gets all choppy trying to handle it.

I just tried it out on Medium, and was able to pepper everything with a mix of elemental, Rock and Metal towers. I didn't bother with the Pebble towers... even the programmers admitted they were lousy once you upgraded them. I guess if you do some of the harder challenges, there will be a need for them.

Not only do you have a choice of straightforward difficulty levels, you can also choose different challenges like Funnel Tree ("the hardest tree to defend on the planet"), One Life (let one creep slip to the roots and it's over), 20K (build your defenses fast -- advanced waves come every 10 seconds), Quick Release (one monster a second for 300 seconds), and Marathon (100 waves, 20 lives).

I wasn't able to really hear the sound effects over the brassy music, but they're there if you turn the music off. I'd keep the music on though, it's silly and fun in a wacky old-timey way, and there are several tracks.

This was a very enjoyable game to play, with a lot of effort put into it. Though the enemies were just a bunch of brightly colored goofballs with nothing to make them stand out much on Medium, I'm going back for another round or two of challenges tomorrow and seeing what sort of trouble I can get into.

Well done!

Excitement:
B+. Some of the challenge modes are downright wack.

Originality: A. A great variation on the defense game, with great creativity on the chaotic rolldowns and multi-screen gameplay. Hectic challenges too!

Graphics: B+. Crisp and clean. Some mutant monsters of different sizes and shapes would have upped the score.

Controls: A-. Very intuitive, though some better boundaries and labeling would have made finding the upgrade button a little easier.

Sound: A. You will never hear the kind of music this game offers in another defense game ever. It is music I think John McCain would love and should have used for his campaign.

Replay value: B. Worth a try tomorrow but I don't think I'll play it after that.

Overall value: A-. A few tune-ups and extra variations here and there, and this would be an A game.

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