Defense Grid: The Awakening

Defense Grid: The Awakening has been out for a while, but it recently went on sale at the Direct2Drive 5-year anniversary event. Not a super value at $19.95, but at $5? Yes please.

Defense Grid mimics the traditional tower defense genre, with a futuristic theme. Aliens are trying to steal your power cores, and it's up to you to capital A Awaken your, uhm, defense grid. But hey, to be fair, it's a pretty tough defense grid.

Towers are varied, if a little indistinct. Maybe that's just me. There are only so many ways of making a tower-like structure. However, the maps and environments are detailed, from dusty plains to ice fields to fiery lava expanses.

The missions have ranged from straightforward to tricky. Some have nearly limitless tower placements, while others are single paths. You can really maze the aliens around in the open maps, but they're certainly tougher. The challenge throughout the game is good, and I've had a little trouble where my strategy has been weak.

You get awards and because it's a Valve-published game there are Steam achievements as well for people who dig that. Medals are available for certain scores on the game, and you get a better score for using the fewest resources possible.

In all, Defense Grid: The Awakening is a fun tower-defense style game for fans of the genre. While it doesn't radically reform gameplay, it has refined it, picking up where more-limited mods and web-based flash games have left off.