Demo Impressions: Defense Grid

Defense Grid is a fairly snazzy looking tower defense game. Tower games got a good deal of attention starting maybe a year and a half ago, to the point that some folks in the enthusiast press are physically pained every time a new one comes out. I guess I have the luxury to simply ignore most of them.



As you can see, the production values are high. There's also a British AI that talks to you a bit and alludes to a larger context that may constitute a story, eventually. I don't know why, but people seem to prefer their AIs British. British and confused.

My only real complaint about the game is its feedback mechanism. Some weapons seem to do no damage to certain enemies, but there are no video or audio queues. I only noticed that my lasers weren't harming shielded enemies at all because I happened to have one highlighted at just the right moment. Some feedback along these lines could also punch up the action a bit, as most of the enemies just walk until they fall down, which isn't very visually exciting.

And as we all know from the days of NES Godzilla, visual excitement counts.