Damaged Universe – Tower Protection Overview

There’s one thing that tower defence video games supply which you can’t get anyplace else. It’s the second after you’ve slogged via wave after wave, barely alive and your towers ragged, when – all of a sudden – you’re forward of the curve, and you may sit again and do nothing. You’ve constructed sufficient defences that nothing can brooch them. You’re invincible, and it’s all the way down to your planning, composure and talent to improve towers at pace. That feeling of weathering the storm is absolutely the enterprise. 

Damaged Universe – Tower Protection delivers on all of those emotions. It is aware of all of the nuts, bolts and scrap metallic that’s wanted to assemble a satisfying tower defence. Once you’re in a stage, preventing to remain on high, Damaged Universe is a unbelievable instance of the style. However there’s an issue: Damaged Universe doesn’t cease there. It retains slapping on further, undesirable nuts and bolts till the ensuing construction is so top-heavy and unwieldy that it’s extra of a jawa sandcrawler than a formula-one automotive. 

At first, you may be led to imagine that Damaged Universe – Tower Protection is a condensed, accessible little sport. What Advance Wars does for real-time technique video games, Damaged Universe – Tower Protection does for tower defences. Every little thing is boiled down to 1 display, a couple of inputs and a few easy mechanics. 

You’re proven a easy grid. A magical portal sloshes about within the nook of the display, and also you get a bemusingly massive variety of squares through which to drop down your base. There’s a stunning mechanic at play right here, because you get extra rewards on the finish of the extent relying on the proximity to the enemy portal. Stick your base a couple of squares from the portal and also you’ve obtained an elevated problem, but in addition a motherlode of rewards do you have to full it. We are going to freely admit to YOLOing, sticking the bottom subsequent to the demon portal, after which dying close to instantly. The tail would go between our legs and we’d begin on the different finish of the world. 

As you’d anticipate, the enemies don’t instantly begin trundling over to your base. You’re given a while to start out putting towers, and the money begins rolling in mechanically and instantly. Generally, you’ll have a couple of towers, near-fully upgraded by the point the primary crocodile or penguin cruises as much as your base. 

The paths the enemies take are sophisticated, and we are going to admit that we nonetheless don’t absolutely perceive the darkish magic behind it. You see, the enemies will at all times take the best path to your base. Stick a blocking tower down, just like the walnuts in Vegetation vs Zombies, and the enemies are almost definitely to bypass it through one other path. So, what occurs then? Stick extra blockers down, and what’s going to the enemies do then? It’s not at all times straightforward or attainable to inform (we expect that the enemies default to their first path when all routes are blocked), but it’s such a vital a part of mastering Damaged Universe – Tower Protection. 

However the remainder of a given siege is nice enjoyable. Every tower could be upgraded thrice over, and the enhancements are noticeable. You possibly can handle the circulation of enemies, making a mosh-pit of demise the place all of your weapons are firing in a single spot. Alternatively, you may break up the enemies up, sending them the good distance spherical to your base, as you nibble at them over time. However be careful for the hulking minibosses, who sponge your bullets, making gradual progress to your base. 

There’s an asterisk right here: we fell into the identical patterns too typically. Damaged Universe – Tower Protection leans into the minibosses so ceaselessly, that the one actual method is to stay up partitions and hearth from behind them. That’s not the tip of the world, as there’s nonetheless technique in variance in that method, however we’d have liked to adapt extra. What would a stage have been like if blocking towers have been banned, for instance? How would we alter our method? We hardly ever had our versatility challenged. 

Now and again, a giant, end-of-world boss seems, and – once more – there’s the obscure sense of a chance missed. They definitely look nice, being big animals who loom over the world and instil a way of panic. However they’re nothing greater than climate, actually. They sometimes trigger international results, like damaging, slowing down or beautiful your towers. You possibly can’t assault them they usually can’t assault you, not less than not one-on-one. It’s all a little bit of a disgrace. 

However general, we’d transfer our thumb to the upright place. It is a easy, fun-first method to tower defence that pulls off essentially the most tough of methods: it’s easy to study and exhausting to grasp. And also you’re definitely rewarded for mastering it. Should you finish the extent with a big stash of cash, you get elevated rewards for being so stingy. So, there’s loads of purpose to replay, and much more purpose to get good. 

However alas, if solely every thing in Damaged Universe – Tower Protection was straightforward to study, exhausting to grasp. As a result of all of it comes undone within the menus, and within the moments between battles. 

Drawback Quantity One is that Damaged Universe – Tower Protection seems like a port from cellular. It prefers the method the place every thing you are able to do within the sport is offered, on display, without delay. Need to have a look at all of your turret choices? Right here’s all of them in a single at-a-glance menu. Now, simply faucet the one you need! Oh, wait, you’ve obtained a controller in your fingers. Um…

Damaged Universe – Tower Protection by no means adapts to Xbox and a sport controller. Selecting a turret, transferring it right into a free slot after which upgrading it, is such a blizzard of befuddling button presses and UI confusion that we gave up. Generally you progress with the left analogue stick, different instances the appropriate. Generally you’re tabbing with the LB and RB buttons, different instances it’s the sticks. And the UI will flash in a number of locations, clamouring in your consideration, such as you have been sitting at a one-armed bandit in Vegas. 

Drawback Quantity Two is that there’s a lot frippery. To be honest, there are alternatives and menus that do enhance Damaged Universe – Tower Protection: you may improve your turrets, and slot in mods that give them a personalised contact. That’s nice, and you may really feel, bodily, how highly effective they’re. However elsewhere, there are just too some ways to minorly modify your battles, or barely differ the way you play, and we couldn’t assist however suppose that half of them may have been edited out. Tear out a lot of the junk, and there could be a lean, imply tower defence machine beneath. However that is astonishingly stodgy and unwieldy, and even taking part in a sport can grow to be a farce. 

There’s a captivating, tactile little tower-defence sport right here someplace. However it’s a must to play pass-the-parcel to get there, tearing off layer after layer of poor controls, shoddy UI and innumerable sport modes to get there. On PC and cellular, we suspect that Damaged Universe – Tower Protection is bordering on a must-buy. On Xbox, we’d recommend it’s one to bypass.

You should purchase Damaged Universe – Tower Protection from the Xbox Retailer