While Hidden Path did not have a booth inside of the Exhibit hall of PAX, i was lucky enough to be able to swing by their area to take a look at their new PC game: Defense Grid: The Awakening for PC.
Based on the large selection of flash based tower defense games that have recently become popular online, the group over at hidden path have set out to create the Tower Defense game that they have always wanted to play. Gone are the silly squares and 2d boxes with an “X” on it that resembles a machine gun tower, and in its place is rendered enemies and weapons towers that are animated for your viewing pleasure. The comical sounds have also been replaced by a clean audio that adds to the game play giving the overall presentation a nice feel to it.
However, true to its origin roots, they have designed a game that is easily accessable for all to play. Part of the charm of the Tower Defense type games is both its simplicity to get into and the flexability of the number of ways to pass each stage using various strategic tactics. This game continues this. There are a large number of stages that range from wide open where users have to create a path using the towers for the enemies to follow, to stages that have a preset path that makes you use strategic placement of weapons the priority.
A new game play element they added is that the mobs have a specific target, energy cells that they are attempting to capture and escape with, adding an additional level to the usual “stop the enemy from crossing the board” scenario that is commonly used in other Tower Defense type games.
The game is set to have 20 levels and is estimated to take roughly 8 hours to complete. However, anyone who has ever played a Tower Defence game will know the replay value of trying various tactics and of course the challenge of completing a level with ‘0 lives lost and no sell’ will extend game play far beyond the projected 8 hours.
This game will be available for PC download in November, and a version for Xbox Live 360 download has been announced. No current plans for a Mac version of the game.
Chris Hori
