The tower defense genre has gotten a bit stale. Outside of a couple of breaths of fresh air, such as Plants vs Zombies, the core gameplay of the genre has remained unchanged since the storming of Fort Condor in Final Fantasy VII. That said, Revenge of the Titans shows that this genre still has some room to grow by introducing a few changes to the time tested formula.
Developed by Pupppygames, Revenge of the Titans blends the time-tested gameplay of tower defense games, such as Desktop Tower Defense, with a sci-fi theme, quicker paced gameplay and RTS elements. What results is an interesting hybrid of the two genres, where mismanaging your resources or foolishly going for the wrong technologies at the wrong times can be just as dangerous as the titular Titans.
The greatest change to the tower defense formula that Revenge of the Titans introduces is that there isn't a single track for the Titans to follow. Instead, they find their own path from their spawn to their destination, the destruction of your city. While they will usually go via roads to do this, as it provides them a speed bonus, it isn't always the case. While this idea isn't entirely new; it is on a scale I haven't seen in another tower defense game. This can make setting up defenses ahead of time a bit of a challenge.
The challenge in setting up defenses comes from a bit of randomness to their pathing that can rarely lead to odd path-finding. Because the Titans cannot stack on top of one another; they will push and bump one another. If a Titan is pushed far enough or the road ahead is too crowded; it may decide that the best route is going overland and in the process bypass all your defenses. While it can be frustrating, it is a somewhat rare occurrence. But, it does bare mentioning due to some maps being more prone to it than others and that it wastes valuable resources to pick off one lone Titan that has left the herd.
One of the two major RTS features brought into Revenge of the Titans is the concept of resource management. While the idea of buying turrets with money is hardly new, the way Revenge of the Titans goes about it puts a new twist on it and promotes replaying previous levels.
The starting money for each level on the campaign is determined solely by what was left over on the previous round plus end of level bonuses and recycling of deployed buildings, which are recycled automatically. Since buildings do not recycle for their full cost, it is important to perfect a strategy for each level to maximize combat effectiveness while limiting expenditures.
That said, there are a couple other money makers. Scattered around each level beyond the first are crystal deposits reminiscent of those found in the Starcraft series. Much like those in Starcraft, they can be mined by using a special building, a refinery, to provide extra income. However, some crystal deposits are risky to harvest. Also, crystals can only be minded for so long before they become depleted and disappear. Beyond mining, sometimes enemies will drop money bonuses for a quick buck. Also, the technology tree provides research grants at the cost of not being able to research anything else for that visit.
This brings me to the glaring flaw in Revenge of the Titans and the other major RTS concept, the tech tree. The tech tree itself is an excellent idea to add an extra level of strategy and it is chocked full of various weaponry as well as other helpful goodies such as turret add-ons as well as technologies to help win the fight against the Titans.
My problem with the tech tree is it is simply obtuse to use. The labels for each researchable item often doesn't give a great deal insight on what that technology really does. The only time a research item is explained in detail is when it is purchased. This is very frustrating in the early game because there are many paths to follow. Also, there isn't a way to see what the stats are of the technologies you cannot research yet. Will a laser be worth spending several levels worth of research to obtain? There is simply no way to tell without outside help. For a game which rewards precise, efficient gameplay, this feels like a major oversight for Puppygames.
Gameplay is split up between three different modes with the campaign taking up a majority of the game time. The campaign makes up a total of fifty levels, split between five worlds. The other two modes are endless and survival, which play very similarly. The key difference between the two are how they are scored, waves vs time, and how technology is accessed. For survival, additional technology is only given for completion of worlds in the campaign. While endless can access the tech tree every so often to make a selection.
The presentation of the game is surly going to put off some players. While the art is well done and crisp, with each Titan type easy to identify, some players will be hung up on that it looks only as good as some flash games found on the web. But, thanks to some very low system requirements, partly thanks to the more basic, stylized graphics, it can run smoothly on nearly any machine and makes it great for putting on a netbook for some tower defense on the go.
The audio side of things leaves me feeling a bit mixed. The soundtrack for the game is mostly comprised of synthesized music which fits in with the sci-fi setting of the game. But, the audio warnings for various events, such as a crystal being left unmined or a building under attack, aren't as attention grabbing as I would like them to be and often get covered up by the fire of turrets and the hum of refineries. With the only visual warnings of these events being a small icon in the upper left corner of the screen. The audio warnings for such events should much more attention grabbing.
Puppygames took some real risks with this title by changing the typical tower defense gameplay to focus more on strategy and resource management. Even though it does have some flaws, it makes for a great debut on Steam for the Puppygames. With the promise already made for additional content by way of free patches as well as talk of DLC, Revenge of the Titans will surly have some lasting appeal for fans of the tower defense genre. While it may not set the world on fire like Plants vs Zombies did, it's solid, tactical gameplay will keep fans entertained for a long time.
