2008 has been a hell of a year for tower defense games. Things kicked off with the stellar PixelJunk Monsters, and then kept chugging along with titles like Ninjatown, FieldRunners, and everything in between.
To close out 2008, Steam recently saw the release of the bigger-than-usual-polish for a tower defense game title Defense Grid: The Awakening. But was it all flash and no substance, or did Defense Grid close out the year in style?
Tower defense games have become something of a passion of mine over the last year. After being turned onto the genre with 2007’s Desktop Tower Defense and falling head over heels in love with PixelJunk Monsters and FieldRunners, I’ve become something of a ravenous beast when it comes to the consumption of little army men running through my defense grid. Which brings us to… Defense Grid. Not my smoothest transition, I know — but the video above should make up for any failings in literary style on my part.
Defense Grid: The Awakening is the first tower defense game I’ve seen that had me panicked about the system requirements — it just looks that good. Launching on Steam later this month for $19.99, Defense Grid promises 20 varying environments, 10 different towers, 8 hours of campaign mode, multiple strategic solutions to each stage, and of course, Steam achievements. Oh — and those system requirements? Turns out they’re not as bad as I thought. I think we can all scrape together 1.8 CPU and 512 RAM.
