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Defense Grid 2

Defense Grid 2

Aliens were told to walk this line and so we built towers to shoot 'em all down.

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There's something meditative about a tower defence game. You look at the map, think of a strategy, and then implement it as the resources start coming in, adapting to various enemy types while trying to create choke points to focus your fire power on. Hidden Path Entertainment's Defense Grid 2 really sticks to the rule book, but in doing so provides us with a rich and deep experience with all the mechanics you can think of that add to this kind of game.

There are nine different towers, each with a distinct role and you can (read: should) build boosts to enable bonus perks (extra damage, extra score, stealth detection). Enemy types range from standard walkers, slow moving bigger units with lots of armour, shielded units (some that drop their shield to protect their friends who follow), stealth units, drop ships that land at your base and sends out smaller units that rush towards the exit, and so on. There is much to learn and the game does a good job of teaching you the basics, while you will have to practice (or watch videos) for more advanced strategies.

There are various special abilities (instant kill, overcharging towers, priority targeting, etc.) and you can even use the command shuttle to raise extra platforms for a price (in certain maps this can really aid you when creating choke points). Some maps have multiple spawn points and exits, while others are more straight forward. Some only let you place towers along a route while others task you with blocking off paths and building a maze for the aliens to crawl through. There's a little bit of everything here.

Defense Grid 2
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There is actually a decent story that plays out over load screens and rather lengthy and there's some entertaining dialogue that plays out between the numerous AI's tasked with defending mankind and yourself as the commander. The developers have wisely realised that most players will pay little or no attention to the story of a game of this kind, so it's told in a rather non-intrusive way that plays out while you tackle the campaign's story missions. While we have to admit to not paying full attention to it for the majority of our time negotiating the 20 mission story arc, there was certainly one or two things that stuck with us and made us chuckle (we do remember being quite fond of raspberries for some reason).

Defense Grid 2 has a little something for everyone. The 20 missions that make up the game can be played in a variety of ways - there's co-op (local and online), a competitive mode (where the aliens you kill spawn on your opponent's map), and a wealth of rule sets to test your skills with. There's Grinder and Super Grinder, where the former throws 100 waves of standard walkers your way, while the latter has 100 waves of a variety of alien enemies. Then there's Fixed Resources (start with a fixed sum of resources), Power Outage (towers only powers up when the cursor is near or when a core is passing), No Red Towers (you cannot upgrade towers passed the second level), Limited Towers (only a certain number of towers allowed), Focal Point (cursor does damage), and plenty more variations.

Defense Grid 2

There are medals to be won for each of these as well as tower perks to unlock, all in all a ton of stuff for the completionist to conquer. Add to this four difficulty levels, where even Normal will give you a decent challenge (and Elite is a proper test). The rewind feature that lets you skip back to previous checkpoints comes in handy, whenever you realise you've spent your resources on the wrong thing. There is also a nice risk and reward structure in place as far as the resource system goes, as unspent resources grant you bigger bonuses at the end of the wave.

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We played the game on Xbox One for the purpose of this review and one thing that could have been done a bit better (in our opinion) is the achievements. We unlocked 10 achievements upon playing the opening prologue (and in retrospect we could easily have gotten 2-3 more had we known what was required). It was a little ridiculous to be honest. With 65 achievements in the game we would rather have seen more achievements dedicated to conquering say the various rule sets rather to handing out that many achievements to the player right at the start. Make us work a little harder for them and when you have this many variations and settings - why not use the achievements to highlight this?

Defense Grid 2

In many ways Defense Grid 2 is the definitive tower defence game, while not overcomplicating the basic premise it adds a ton of mechanics, rule sets and twists. It's a burger with all the trimmings, if you will. You know what to expect, but it's well put together and served with tasty sides. It's the kind of game we see ourselves returning to over and over again, picking off those gold medals one by one.

Defense Grid 2Defense Grid 2Defense Grid 2
08 Gamereactor UK
8 / 10
+
Well crafted and balanced, Tons of variations and rule sets, Rewind feature avoids frustration, Easy to understand, hard to master structure of towers and enemies.
-
Achievements could have been used to greater effect, Not a lot of innovation.
overall score
is our network score. What's yours? The network score is the average of every country's score

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Defense Grid 2

REVIEW. Written by Bengt Lemne

"It's a burger with all the trimmings, if you will. You know what to expect, but it's well put together and served with tasty sides."



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