4/1/08 - Protector is a tower defense game made by Undefined. If you are unfamiliar with this genre, the concept is basically this: waves of enemies spawn at Point A, and start moving towards Point B. Your job is to build towers that damage enemies to the point of destruction. Every enemy that reaches Point B will subtract from your lives, of which you usually get about 20. If you survive all the waves of enemies, you win the game! This genre has its roots in Starcraft custom levels, which then evolved into Warcraft 3 custom levels, but I'll get into that in a later review.

One of Protector's main strengths is the concept of damage types. Every unit you can buy deals a certain type of damage (physical, fire, energy, poison, ice), and enemy units usually will have resistances and weaknesses to different damage types. A big part of the strategy in this game is clicking on the numbers above your HUD to see what weaknesses the upcoming waves are going to have. In fact it's necessary after you get past the easier levels. It's funny, because some enemies will actually absorb certain damage types, so watch out for that! Hahah

The experience system is also a cool aspect of Protector. Every time your defenders attack an enemy, they will gain a small amount of experience that adds until they are ready to level up. At this point you pay some money (that is earned from killing enemies) and choose whether you'd like a pure damage upgrade, or a 'specialized' upgrade which basically makes a fire defender more fiery, and a poison defender more poisonous... you get the picture. At the later levels you can get some really powerful defenders, and that's one of the most satisfying things about this game.

As for cons, well first let's talk about the learning curve. This game takes a while to understand, there are just so many options of how and where to build, and the enemies with different resistance/weaknesses add to the complexity. If you aren't a veteran of tower defense games, I would really suggest starting with Tower Defense 1.5 or something. Also, while the graphics are very well done for units and defenders, the graphics for the actual levels suck. The music is also pretty anti-climatic, I found myself turning it off every time I played, not because its bad music, but just because it has no sense of urgency and seemed like it was made for menus instead of actual gameplay.

Overall, I would recomend this game to a fan of tower defense type games. If you are new to the genre, definitely try out Tower Defense 1.5 first, but if you have been through a few games like this and are looking for a new challenge then Protector has just what you are looking for!

Click here to check out Protector

Reviewed by Chris