5 Great Tower Defense Games You Need to Play

Where did all the kart racers go? Those are a thing of the past that were only good for “driving” your series into the ground. The Tower Defense genre has quickly risen and became an ever so popular genre for both audiences (hardcore and casual). Now don’t get me wrong, there is a ton of these types of games out there are for the most part, they aren’t all great. I’ve compiled a list here of my five favorites in the genre that I believe will turn you into a believer of tower defense games, be it over saturated or not. The list is in no particular order.

Geo Defense
Iphone

This was the first game I ever bought for my IPhone. Persuaded to buy it by Rich Matney (Co-Founder) I was instantly sucked into one of the hardest of the genre, but one of the most enjoyable as well and easily my favorite IPhone game I’ve played so far. Geo Defense looks like the Geometry Wars series where the Creeps (enemies of the game) are on a set path and if one creep reaches the end, the number at the end of the road is reduced by 1. One great thing this game has going for it is the fact that the entire game is open to play when you buy it; all the stages are unlocked from the beginning; that and it’s only a couple of dollars. If a stage frustrates you (and I almost guarantee one will) you can just move onto the next stage and return back to it later. A sequel to the game came out recently where the creeps aren’t on a set path; you build the path out of towers which makes the game more of a challenge, but was a great update to an already great game.

Final Fantasy Crystal Defenders
Iphone, WiiWare, XBLA, PSN

Yes, this is a Final Fantasy tower defense game and yes it uses assets from the Tactics series on the Nintendo DS; but it is still a great game that can be played on numerous consoles. The object of the game is fairly straight forward; try to stop the enemies as quickly as you can. The one thing the game has going for it is that yes it uses characters from the Final Fantasy universe which helps a lot but on its own its still a great tower defense game; oh and the game is quite long stretching out to 300 levels. If you are reading this post, you probably have one of the items this game runs on so I say try it out.

Plants vs. Zombies
PC, Mac

This is my favorite game on the list, hands down. The object of this game is to stop an army of Zombies from intruding your house with numerous artillery plants that starts on the lawn but ends up near the pool and on the rooftops which forces you to change your strategy drastically. The game is full of hilarious antics like zombies that drive a Zamboni or the ones that ride on dolphins. Everything about this game was great which I talk more about in my Review. Do yourself a solid and just try the game out; the demo is very generous offering you around forty-five minutes of playtime which is more than enough to convince you that the game is worth a purchase.

Field Runners
IPhone

Fieldrunners was one of the first big hits on IPhone which has been nominated for several awards. This is a great introductory tower defense game that still offers plenty of challenge but is more limited with only having three different maps to play on. Fiendrunners is also rumored to be released via the PlayStation minis and DSiWare before the end of the year. Let’s just hope they try to stay around the same price tag because this game may be cheap but not cheaply made ($2.99).

PixelJunk Monsters
PS3, PSP(soon)

The game that helped bring out Q-games, PixelJunk Monsters is a great tower defense game where you control a Shaman looking guy that is set out to protect a hut that is holding small creatures. The character creates towers out of trees to try and stop the enemies from getting to the creatures. The game has a high difficulty rating that kicks in after the first couple of levels. The original game had twenty-one levels but was later updated to thirty-six with the expansion pack. It takes some great patience and planning to tackle the enemies and thwarting their plans of attacking the hut.

Tags: iPhone PSN tower defense wiiware XBLA