Frontier Tower Defense Gold – I need a hero, I'm holding out for a hero!

by Jay O. on Jul 24, 2011 7:45:05 PM — read 2,165 times

TAGS: Apps, Games,

Tested version: 1.23
Latest version: 1.28
Requires Android: from 2.1

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Summary

Games, games, games. What can I say—I’m on a game roll at the mo‘, and you’re along for the ride. So without further ado, let’s get on with today’s review.

Yes, I love games, but I especially love all Tower Defense games. They’re all about keeping monsters from getting to where they’re looking to go by using towers adorned with automatic weapons. Overall I find that Tower Defense games tend to work really well on small smartphone screens.

Frontier Tower Defense Gold follows the classic gameplay, as well as bring with it a surprising new element. What, pray, might this be? You know the drill: read on to find out.

Features & Use

Section rating:

Test device: Motorola Defy with CM7
App: available as of Android 2.1

Frontier Tower Defense = monsters galore. Some of them are stuck on the ground, some of them are super powerful ‘boss monsters’. All are en route through a woody landscape towards a village where helpless humans are doomed to fall victim to the monster colonies, which appear in waves, growing stronger and stronger.

Fortunately, there’s a hero out there, ready to fight to the death for glory’s sake. He has no army who would help him fight the war, so instead he builds towers along the path the monsters come down towards the village.

The following types of towers are available:

• Spear: a good all rounder; average shooting range
• Cannon: specialised on non-flying monsters; restricted shooting range
• Defense: specialised on combating flying monsters: average shooting range
• Electro: a good all rounder; restricted shooting range
• Legendary: similar to Cannon, but more powerful
• Magic: a good all rounder; restricted shooting range
• Ultima: a good all rounder but with extra big shooting range. The most powerful tower, can only be constructed once per map

The hero must shell out money and sometimes even jewels to finance the constuction of these towers. At the beginning of each round the hero starts out with a small sum of gold; he collects more as the game progresses as a reward for killing monsters. He is also awarded bonus money for each monster wave (amounts vary). Some boss monsters conveniently drop jewels once they’ve been defeated.

So what, pray tell, might this special new element be? The hero is part of the game. He must collect gold and jewels that have fallen to the floor and build towers by standing beneath the tree that has been selected for tower-building. He can only do so when the game has been paused—he dies when a monster touches him.

There are four maps and four levels of difficulty to choose from. The difficulty of a level can be also adjusted and regulated. As soon as you successfully complete a level your score is saved the list. Results come in the form of a number of points. And for all the Facebook fans out there: you can ‘like’ the app.

Bottom line:
Frontier Tower Defense Gold is a good, solid Tower Defense game with new twist which, unfortunately isn’t all that (yet): the controls are not all that great. Furthermore, four missions may be a tad too little for a game for which users have to pay.

Screen & Controls

Section rating:

Unfortunately, the Frontier Tower Defense Gold controls are disappointing. The format makes it difficult to navigate the hero and he runs into monsters by mistake as a result. Controls are good aside from this one set back.

The design is very intricate and detailed, but not something that we haven’t seen before. A large part of the display is covered up by the control elements. A pity!