iBomber Defense

 
Developer: Cobra Mobile
Steam Release: April 2010
Hours Played: 30.5
Similar To: Cursed Treasure 2 / Defender's Quest / Defense Zone 2 / Kingdom Rush / Royal Defense
Rating: 3/5 Parsnips

GAMEPLAY
Step aside Kingdom Rush, a new kid's in town and he's arrived in a World War II setting with all guns blazing! iBomber Defense is a solid, classic TD game that doesn't try to re-invent the wheel. You get one top-down battleground screen for each mission, place your towers and then watch as the waves of enemies fry. It's a simple formula with the right degree of challenge - and it's a real contender! This is classic tower defense fair done extremely well. Enemies follow a path leading to your base while you first lay down your cheaper machine gun turrets that mow down infantry. Then you place your booming anti-tank guns to destroy vehicles and tanks; then you've got your flak guns to take down planes. As you complete missions your arsenal expands to include towers that may slow enemies down or increase fire-power of nearby towers. 
 

BALANCE & PACE
A typical mission comes loaded with around 20-50 waves of creeps and always starts off with weaker enemies before graduating to heavy tanks or huge battleships. The path of the enemies is made clearly visible and the game always tells you from where the enemies are coming from before each wave begins. Each kill gives you resources (in this case, cash) that's automatically added to your coffers. If a set amount of creeps (5, 10 or 15) manage to infiltrate your base, you lose. After a few tutorial-type missions, the game allows you to upgrade each tower to medium and then maximum strength. You may speed up the game at any time and there is also an excellent rewind feature that allows you to restart a wave if you messed up the tower placement but once you use this, you cannot use it for another couple of waves.

PRESENTATION & DESIGN
The game was originally a mobile game so don't expect top-of-the-range graphics. All machine guns make the same rat-a-tat-tat, and the anti-tank guns make the same booming noise. There are very few sound files with infantry almost silent. Despite this, the military marching music at the menus keeps the WW2 theme very much alive. There are few variety of creeps and weapons (about 6 or 7 of each) but its the variety of maps lending themselves to multiple strategies that gives the game its dynamic quality. The game first gives you the choice of entering Campaign or Quickplay mode. Initially, the screen just shows you a blocky map of Europe with 3 listed missions but the campaign consists of a series of 14 missions as the Allies or Axis army and you have to complete the campaign before switching sides. 

PROGRESS SYSTEM
The Quickplay option allows you to replay missions in an attempt to win medals and improve your score. Here, from the main lobby, the game takes you to a menu screen which allows you to scroll through a series of cards representing missions. Although well-designed there is a slight issue in that you must scroll through them all to find the one you want - never much fun. Campaign mode is simple; you complete each mission one by one whereas Quickplay mode is where Nerd Central is. Here, you scroll through cards that give info on past achievements: (1) Highest Score - play Veteran for this. (2) Survivor - complete a level. (3) Base Defender - don't lose a life. (4) Turret Guard - don't lose a turret. Spades are awarded depending on the difficulty. Presentation for this is clear and pleasing on the eye. 

CONCLUSION
Along with Plants Vs Zombies and Defense Grid, iBomber Defense is the ideal introduction to tower defense games. If you don't get a kick out of the way you slowly obliterate those enemies as they travel to your base or successfully ward of the creeps without letting one get through to your base then I doubt if TD games are for you. The presentation of the stats in the Quickplay mode shows progress in a visually appealing way and allows for plenty of replayability for the TD geeks out there. Pacific (the excellent sequel) retains all that was good about the original release and adds a few more interesting twists of its own including bombs that can be dropped directly on enemies and a perks system. There are also new creeps and a few new towers thrown into the mix. All good stuff.