Tower Wars Review

Tower Wars is a refreshing take on the Tower Defence genre, created by SuperVillain Studios. Most games of this genre follow the same pattern – defend yourself from non-stop waves of enemies until you are overwhelmed, or the time runs out. They all lack an offensive factor, which is where Tower Wars comes in! This game forces you to juggle sending troops out to attack your opponent’s castle whilst also trying to defend your own. The game includes one tutorial map, three classic tower defence maps and three multiplayer maps with 1vs1, 2vs2 and 3vs3 matches.

You start the game with a small amount of gold to purchase upgrades and units, 3 gold mines and 1 unit type. The gold mines slowly fill your inventory with gold, you can also select them to buy more workers – which will have you rolling in masses of gold in no time! There is a dotted line that flows from your opponent’s armoury to your castle, which shows the exact route that their troops will take – making it easier to strategically place your towers in convenient places and shift your enemies path and send them in circles before they manage to reach your castle! The three gold mines are randomly plonked on each map – the placement of these are quite important as they determine where you can plot your tower’s on the map’s hexes, making each game a little different.

You also have Battle Points, these are gained from the amount of time your units are alive on the battlefield – the more your units aren’t destroyed, the more points you have to spend on upgrades. It’s a nice addition that adds a sense of competition between players and keeps you thinking about strategic placement. There are plenty of upgrades in the game – all of the units are upgradable, that’s 8 towers, 9 units and a castle as well as a barracks tech tree (that affects all units), a unit tech tree (that has three upgrades for each unit) and mines and miners. Units available to send to the opponent’s base are displayed on the action bar and you have a decent amount to choose from including standard troops, speedy units, units that buff surrounding units etc, leading all the way up to a boss type unit.

You have two gameplay choices – traditional tower defence (play alone and defend your castle against the computer) which is a pretty handy way to practice, or versus mode, which is the multiplayer mode. Versus mode is divided into three categories: 1vs1, 2vs2 and 3vs3. There is also a matchmaking feature if you haven’t got a friend to drag into a co-op game.

The game has a sort of steam-punk esque style going on, which goes quite nicely with the art style (think of a more cartoony Torchlight) and fits the game well. The camera angle is also fixed, with a limited zoom, although that doesn’t really cause much of a problem as even zoomed out fully you can still see what you are doing.

One massive gripe I had with the game was its soundtrack. It really is annoying. I found myself fumbling through the settings to find the music ‘off’ button within the first 5 minutes of playing the game. The voice over is fine, each unit type had quite a comedic voice over which was a relief after having my ears burned by the soundtrack.

All in all, Tower Wars is actually a really fun game, with or without friends. There is definitely room for improvements, more maps need to be added, and it wouldn’t hurt to have a campaign, especially as the voice over work is so good. Oh yeah, the soundtrack is in desperate need of a make-over, but I still recommend this game, as this one of the few decent tower defence games out there!

Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.