Tower Raiders GOLD (Android App Review)

RATING:
5 out of 5

PRICE:
$4.99 (Limited free version available)

TASTY:
An addictive tower defense game sporting 24 levels (and three bonus maps) that will keep you on your toes and blasting away for many months to come.

BUMMER:
Graphics are run of the mill, adding numerous baddies to your screen can slow things down, and some turret aiming is squirrely at times. DROID Eris and Magic users should snag Tower Raiders BLACK to get in on the action.

COOL:
While there are many tower defense-style games to choose from in the DROID Marketplace, this title rises above the rest, boasting an enormous collection of levels, deviously complex battle fields, and a wide range of towers with numerous upgrades to slay the baddies trying to survive a journey across your map.

REVIEW:
If you’re new to tower defense games, you’re in luck. Tower Raiders GOLD ($4.99) is a well-constructed title that will ease you into the genre, gently leading you from easy levels to more difficult terrain and bad guys over time, and adding just the right number of new turrets to keep things interesting as things progress.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Tower defense games all offer the same basic game play experience. You start with an open battle field, with gray studded spaces to place turrets. A slate gray path is also laid out which enemy units must travel on in order to get to your stored crystals, then back out again.

The aim of the game is to purchase and place turret-style gun emplacements in various locations in order to wipe out the enemy. As the levels progress, you’ll quickly begin to understand which turrets do more damage to various enemy types, and which turrets need to be upgraded in lieu of others over time.

Plus, as things get crazy, you may buy back turrets to reclaim precious funds; the more baddies you kill, the more money you earn.

Game controls are available to speed up or slow down the pace of the action, and zooming and panning is also fairly straight-forward to keep everything in view. Don’t lose track of the enemy as they try to carry off your precious gems!

The graphics are plain vanilla, and things do tend to slow down and stutter on the higher levels as the game pushes your device to keep up. Some turrets also go rouge in terms of targeting at times. Recent updates have cleaned things up nicely, and more are sure to come.

Overall, this is one of the best tower defense games on the DROID Marketplace. With a responsive developer and a growing legion of addicted fans, I see nothing but solid updates, more levels, and expanded features as the months go by. A must-have for all DROID gamers.