Total Defense 3D’ Review – A Gratifying Title With Its Share Of Problems

‘Total Defense 3D’ Review – A Gratifying Title With Its Share Of Problems
You know what really gets my goat?

You know what really gets my goat?  Tower defense games.  I don’t mind the concept.  On paper it’s all very fun: bad guys want to blow up my fortress, so I build towers to keep them away.  But for some reason, developers all too often take a simple idea and turn it into something that’s downright unpleasant to play.  For every Fieldrunners and Toy Soldiers , we get a handful of Warlock Defenses and Total Defense 3Ds .

Right off the bat, let me say that DaSuppa’s latest creation is nothing special. Total Defense 3D is a tower defense title, and while it has its refreshing moments, it doesn’t pretend to be something it isn’t.  You’ve seen the gameplay before: enemy units spawn at a certain point and follow a predetermined path to your base.  Line that path with enough of your own units and your fort will be perfectly safe.  Fail to construct sufficient defenses and you’ll be wishing you’d sprung for that secret escape passage when you had the chance.

Anybody who has experience with tower defense games knows that there are two types: the one where enemies follow a set path to your base and the one where you decide what path they take with the placement of your towers. Total Defense 3D is the former, and that’s an issue.  Tower defense games can have a very strategic edge, but it’s lost when all of the action takes place on a linear path, reducing the number of spots where towers can be placed from “near infinite” to “a handful”.  When this happens, the game becomes less about creating an epic gauntlet that will truly test the mettle of your opponents and more about putting a slowing turret and a rocket turret next to each other on every corner of the map.

Really though, this is a tower defense game with a substantial fan base, and if you’re part of that base then this isn’t actually a negative.  In fact, if that’s your cup of tea, you’ll probably appreciate the variety of missions that Total Defense 3D offers.  From orthodox survival to using your defenses to bring down an opposing fortress, you won’t be hurting for things to do.  What’s most impressive, though, is the fact that the game is able to include myriad missions while keeping the core gameplay mechanics the same.  You won’t need to run through a long tutorial every time you start a new level, which allows the title to be simultaneously simple and exciting.

Unfortunately, for all the nice touches in level design, the game’s artificial intelligence is somewhat archaic.  And by “the game’s AI” I mean only the AI for the units you own.  And by “somewhat archaic” I mean incredibly unreliable.  For example, in one mission I was tasked with simultaneously defending my base and destroying my enemy’s across a small trench.  I decided first to set up my defenses and to focus on the enemy base once I was secure.  However, when I had completed my perimeter and the bad guys started their first run, my towers started attacking the other base while my opponent’s tanks rolled by in droves, unharmed.  The most baffling part wasn’t that all of the towers failed to focus on the more imminent threat (nobody’s perfect, after all), but that the towers with the specific ability to slow enemies down focused on the base.  When I saw this, I just began yelling at the game “No, you stupid morons, that base isn’t going anywhere!  Those tanks!  Shoot those!”  But they refused to comprehend my mad screeching, and so I was forced to fail the mission a handful of times before things fell my way.

I also had to take issue with the Total Defense 3D’s controls.  The scheme is nice and simple, and 90 percent of the time goes off without a hitch. But every so often I found that after going through the process of opening the build menu, selecting a tower and dragging it to the right spot, the game didn’t register my final command to build the structure, forcing me to redo the entire process.  Admittedly, it isn’t all that much of a hassle, and only set me back a few seconds at any given time.  At the same time, though, a few seconds can be a lot of wasted time when an enemy army is only a few seconds from your doorstep.

The title does get points for its overall feel.  It’s clear that DaSuppa has gone out of their way to make you feel like you’re in a real intergalactic struggle, fending off an evilhorde as it tries to ravage various worlds.  When you play, you won’t feel as if you’re just defending one point after another.  Rather, you’ll sense that each stage has a certain gravity, and when you finish defending a world you feel a tangible pride.  Though you’ll know you’re playing a game, you’ll feel that it’s somehow slightly more than just another arcade defense title, which goes a surprisingly long way.

At the end of the day, Total Defense 3D has a handful of things going for it, but it also has just as many working against it.  It’s fun enough to play, but can be hindered by its share of control and AI issues.  Unfortunately, functional issues are often the most difficult to overlook, and while they don’t quite cripple the title, the damage is certainly done.  If you are able to see past these, however, you’ll be left with an enjoyably gratifying iOS title.  If you don’t mind struggling with the game mechanics for a good portion of the time, check it out.  After all, there’s a free demo available with expansions available for purchase only if you like it.

You can pick up Total Defense 3D from the App Storeand learn more about DaSuppa on their official website.

[review pros=”Gratifying gameplay, Great mission variety, Immersive design style” cons=”Artificial intelligence isn’t too intelligent, Controls can be very finicky” score=”65″]