iGamer Reviews: Tower Defense (Lost Earth)

By Com2Us.

For iOS and Android mobile devices.

Tower Defense is actually the very first iOS title I played on my iPhone, and I feel like I’ve been neglecting it for a way too long. That said, it’s time for it to have its own share of the limelight.

The Story

To be fair, the Tower Defense genre is not well known for its especially exciting narratives. Actually, it’s not even known for having narratives in the first place. Having said that, Lost Earth goes out of its way to create a cohesive narrative for the gameplay. The general premise is that humanity needs a new place to live, and the colonists managed to pick one of the worst possible places available. Far from Oscar Award winning writing, I can safely say it is better than nothing.

It is a slowly progressing story presented with text-exposition and illustrations, which is just enough detail to add context to the development of the gameplay and, hopefully, keep your interest.

The GamePlay

Lost Earth has the same basic format of every other Tower Defense title: Create a series of defenses to protect your base from seemingly mindless enemies, while continually upgrading said defenses as the number of mindless enemies increases.

That said, Lost Earth manages to stick to the simple concept, and does it reasonably well. There is a variety of mindless enemies, along with a variety of turrets which have different pros and cons leaving them better suited to eliminating certain types of mindless enemies. You collect resources by eliminating enemies, destroying rock deposits, and constructing generators in select locations. Along with that, the game sets you through a series of missions, placing your base in various environments, making certain towers more useful than others based on the geography.

As neat added features, there are achievements, difficulty settings, and even a fast forward button to make the missions progress faster, and add another layer of difficulty in its own way.

 

The Conclusion

If you like Tower Defense games, this is a cheap and fun little title that I’m sure you will enjoy. However, don’t hold out for epic storytelling or something to revolutionize the genre. Then again, for only $3, it does a damn good job.