The classics are back, there is not many tower defense games on the console and there was a point where Defense Grid 2 was in the same situation but luckily for the team at Hidden Path Entertainment, they got support 505 Games and here we are, Defense Grid 2 for the Xbox One, PS4, iOS, Linux and Windows.
This is very similar to the first game, in which, there's a power source which aliens are trying to steal from and it is your job to stop them by placing towers in kill the aliens. Basic concept but it is a surprisingly a lot of fun, I like strategy games, can't beat a game that makes you think tactics and this does it well. Each level sees a path in which all aliens will follow no matter what, you can however build towers in certain places to allow the aliens to go into a different direction. A good thing this leads to is trying out different routes and if something does go wrong, you can change the route, there are checkpoints placed throughout the mission which you can fall back to if you happen to fail the mission.
There are 9 different towers at your disposal, ranging from guns and cannons to blocks, which can give a platform to a tower which can lead to greater range and also added power when upgraded. You are constantly earning points which than in turn be exchanged for either more towers or upgrading a tower, each tower also has its own pros and cons, some might have poor range but great power and vise versa, and as you progress through the levels, you will need to understand how to get the best out of your towers to complete each level.
These towers are here to stop the enemies, there are a variety in types of alien, from your basic normal alien to those who charge down long straight paths but are very slow at corners, aliens with specific armour against towers, stealth aliens and dropships, who will just randomly drop a bunch of aliens somewhere on the map. Luckily if things start to get a little overrun for you, you have a commander with you who has a special power, which could be a instant kill for an area of the map or the whole map, allow towers to be overcharged for a period of time or allow the towers to target one alien, this useful when you come up against aliens who are pretty tankish and can withstand a lot of punishment.
Story wise, there is a basic story follow, it's not vital to the game as such but it does link the missions together, the story is displayed on the loading screens and does include some interesting dialogue, I didn't pay much attention to begin with but some of the write ups are quite funny in places and made me wish I was paying attention from the start. There are 20 or so missions within the story, all taking places on different maps and facing different enemies, so while which mission may have the same gameplay to it, which map offers its own different scerarios and challenges which keep things fresh and entertaining.
As well as the main story missions, you have the ability to retry the missions but with various handicaps, like you can only place so many towers in a level or not allowed to upgrade a tower pass the 2nd level, so there's plenty to keep you going. As well as this you have grinder and super grinder, which puts you against 100 waves of normal aliens or 100 waves of various aliens and also there is co-op both local and online and also a competitive mode, which allows you kill, then spawn in on your opponents map, and all these modes are played out on the maps within the story.
For the completionists out there, you gain medals for each story, tower and mode you use, complete and win in, plus there's 65 achievements for you to hunt, you sadly get around 10-15 of these within the tutorial level, which is a shame as achievements are meant to be earned throughout the game, not gaining them for basics in the tutorial. This and the camera angle are my only real complaints about the game, you only get 4 views of the map, and these are all from the corner of each map, you can zoom in, right up close to the map and see some pretty good detail on the map, towers and aliens but can get a little annoying when trying to place a tower in a certain place without zooming in.
All in all, what you see is what you get, Defense Grid 2 is a tower defense game and its a very well made tower defense game, with enough variety to keep you coming back and slaughtering aliens map after map, medal after medal and you can get all this for the price of around £15.
