Defense Technica

It takes a couple of hours of setting down towers, raise barricades and shoot down waves of enemies to realise that there really isn't anything unique or eyecatching about {Defense Technica}. It's fairly basic and old school, offers no story or setting of note, largely does away with "mazing" in favour of placing towers in fixed locations and progression is simply a series of number maps that need to be conquered in order without any actual context. Not that tower defence titles need context, but this game simply offers nothing to set it apart or excite players. The enemies look like robots we've seen and destroyed before. The industrial design of the first set of levels will also look familiar and even if it picks up it's easy to be turned off by the horribly boring look of the first couple of levels.

And while there's nothing majorly wrong with {Defense Technica} other that a cumbersome interface and difficulty spikes it's about as appealing as a carton of generic brand vanilla ice-cream sitting in the freezer with no trimmings to go with it. It's bland and uninspired and that is perhaps what gives away its origins as a mobile/tablet title. If you want to be mean, this is how Gameloft would clone something like Defense Grid.

One redeeming aspect of {Defense Technica} is its high difficulty level. Getting all medals on some of the levels is very challenging on normal, move to hardcore it's even more difficult and if you really want to challenge your defensive skills you'll toggle off the health bars and UI assists. It may be a little crude in that the difficulty mainly comes from stronger and faster units and in greater numbers, rather than different types. Sure there are flying enemies, and the creeps come in bio and mechanical variations. But when almost all of the towers are strong against bio and weak against shielded and mechanical enemies it becomes more a case of just chipping away at the enemies and slowing them down.

There are a couple of annoying design decisions that kept me from enjoying {Defense Technica} as much as I otherwise would. They concept of having to collect currency all the enemies drop is a real chore in the larger maps. Another thing I would have liked to have seen is a pause feature that allows for a bit of strategic planning - is it is now {Defense Technica} is more of reactive experience. Some people may appreciate this more than me, so it's more a matter of what style of tower defense you enjoy. There are also moments when the controls act up. There's nothing more frustrating or annoying than thinking you've placed down a tower and stopped a wave just to find the command didn't take for some reason (in spite of the confirmation sound effect chiming).

It's hard to find any strong reason why you should pick up {Defense Technica} - there are lots of better options out there and even at ten quid it's hard to ignore the fact that you can find lots of better alternatives for nothing or next to nothing on tablet (sure the former are likely riddled with pay-to-win mechanics, but still). It's solid, and at times the action will have you fully immersed, but it's simply not unique enough to warrant a purchase.