4/9/08 - Desktop Tower Defense - I finally decided to find out why DTD was so great and I played it. At first blush, the game is ultra-simplistic, with funny, cheesy little graphics and mouthed sound effects, most of which remind me of chipmunks. But, simple can often be very fun, and this game is definitely in that category. You'll quickly realize that the point of the game is to build the best maze out of your ballistic towers to make the enemy "creeps" take the longest route possible to prevent them from reaching their goal, while loading them up with pellets and other projectile types. But, don't think you'll be making your arrangments at the beginning and then just kicking back passively as your towers do all the work. Within a few levels you'll be frantically looking for ways to extend your maze or make the wisest possible unit upgrade, and any game that holds your interest that well is a winner in my book.

The game does have plenty of strategic value. For instance, you'll need to make sure to buy some well placed air defense turrets here and there throughout the game, even though flying creeps don't come that frequently. You'll often find yourself so focused on keeping creeps boxed in that you'll forget to keep protecting yourself against flyers which cruise right over your carefully constructed labrynth. Make sure to keep an eye on the upcoming enemy type at the bottom, as you won't want to have to sell your charished upgraded units at a depreciated rate later on in the game to replace them with air defense units.

Other strategies include making sure to upgrade units that have maze corridors on all sides of them first to maximize your investments. You'll also want to put freezing and stunning towers near as many offensive towers as possible so that they take on a lot of damage while being slowed. Other than that, just pack your towers tightly together and you'll do fine, though don't count on blocking the exits as the game will not let you. For a bit of fun hit the send next wave button 50 times and send them all out at once for some sweet, sweet mahem.

The game is also perfect for the casual gamer in that you don't have to worry about losing your hard earned towers or guarding their health as they don't take any damage in this game. It's pretty easy-going in this way as even if you lose the only thing that happens is happy colorful shapes say "Yippee" as they disappear off the screen. This successful implementation of the combat-oriented defense genre with milder themes can also be found in the popular Bloons Tower Defense and is most likely why it beats out more intense and challenging defense games in popularity.

If you're like me and you hadn't played Desktop Tower Defense yet (I'm not sure why you would still be reading this otherwise), then definitely check out this leader in the tower defending genre. Make sure to play the updated 1.5 version on Kongregate, as it is overall a much more polished game than its predecesor and you can earn fun badge acheivements from it as well.

Click here to check out Desktop Tower Defense

Reviewed by Steve