Review: Defense Grid The Awakening (XBLA)

By Joe Haygood | October 30, 2009

Defense Grid: The Awakening Review (Xbox 360 Arcade)

It seems like Tower Defense games are all the rage these days, and it is hard to separate one game from the next, unless you get a solid hook for your game.  Defense Grid: The Awakening looks to change things up a bit by giving you a vast arsenal to defend your base, while tweaking the formula and location for a fun experience.

In Defense Grid: The Awakening, you are tasked with protecting power orbs which are placed at the end of a winding path.  Along the path, you have several spots where you can set up defenses to take out the incoming enemy, which looks to be robotic in nature.  One has to wonder why no one has asked a civil engineer to disconnect the orbs central location from the main road into your base, but that is not your concern.  You just need to make sure to kill the incoming enemies.

Each level is a new layout, complete with elevation and line of sight issues, and selecting the proper defense mechanisms for each level can be a tricky proposition.  And you have plenty of weapons at your disposal to protect your base.  There are gun towers, flamethrower towers, stasis towers and so much more.  Half of the fun is analyzing the map and figuring out the best pattern of defenses to protect your base.

Defense Grid starts off fairly simple, and I finished the first few levels without losing a single orb.  I felt like the master of my own domain, until I started to get into new sets of enemies, and slowly but surely, the difficulty ramps up, sucking you in to the point where you are frantically constructing and tearing down defenses.  The game is crafty with its ramped up learning curve, and keeps you pushing to finish one more level.

With 20 maps available, and the story mode along taking up several hours of play time, you will have your hands full with Defense Grid: The Awakening.  Add in somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred or so challenges, you are sure to get your 800 MS Points worth out of the title.

I came into Defense Grid: The Awakening rather new to the whole Tower Defense genre, and found it to be highly addictive and enjoyable.  If you have played a lot of titles in this genre, you might decide to skip it, but that would be a shame, as there is a lot of polish and enjoyment to be found in this game.  Defense Grid: The Awakening gets 4 out of 5 Aeropausonauts.
Check out Defense Grid: The Awakening and other Xbox Live Arcade reviews at Test Freaks.