I don’t play games on my BlackBerry. There has never been much point in spending a few minutes trying to play BrickBreaker or any of the other games available because they do not provide the rich graphical experience we are used to seeing in mobile games in 2009. More importantly, the majority have almost zero longevity and no free trials which is a testament to how much faith the developers have in their products.
For the first time in a couple of years of BlackBerry ownership I have found a game which is graphically rich, immersive and one which has kept me playing for hours on end. It is called Addictive Tower Defense and is similar to the raft of similar titles hitting the iPhone platform, but to bring this genre successfully to BlackBerry is an impressive effort.
The game is built to take full advantage of the BlackBerry interface and works equally as well with trackballs and the new trackpads on the Curve 8520 and Bold 9700. There are some letter shortcuts, only 8, which take care of sending the next wave of soldiers or vehicles, upgrade towers, selecting towers, displaying the handy wave bar, toggling the tower selection screen, hiding the game, pausing and fast forwarding. That sounds like a confusing list if you have not played the game, but it quickly becomes second nature once you have played a few rounds.
There is a lot to the game and you do have to consider where you place your towers and what type of enemy they can kill. For example, you need cannon towers, lightning towers or flak towers to destroy planes and even the most powerful of missile launchers will have no effect on planes. However, missile launchers work very well on all other enemies. You can also choose frost towers which slow down the enemies and thus you will want to place these adjacent to heavily upgraded towers for maximum effect. The more you play, the more your logic will kick in and the more you will get out of the game.
You need to manage your money, the placement of towers and plan ahead for the type of enemy which is coming next, and with 100 waves in each map type to take care of each game takes a healthy amount of time to complete. Extra maps are freely downloadable and at the last count there are 8 available, each with 4 levels of difficult so you have a good amount of variety built in. I found myself grasping the easy levels fairly quickly, but soon came unstuck when I moved the difficulty up and after a few hours play so far I will definitely be coming back for more.
There is one obvious omission from the feature set and that is sound. It sounds odd to hear of an arcade game which has no sound, and at first it is, but it strangely does not take away from the enjoyment of the game play. Having said that, it would be advantageous to include sound because it is kind of odd without it. I would also like to see the ability for users to make their own maps and share them with others, but as long as a good selection of new maps appears over time I won’t be grumbling.
Addictive Tower Defense is indeed hugely addictive and manages the perfect balance between stress and giving you the time to learn how to play it effectively. The fact that it is on the BlackBerry platform is its main advantage and I for one look forward to many more games of this quality on the platform in the future. Addictive Tower Defense has shown what can be done and it is a HUGE bargain for under $5.
Available here for $4.99. Take 20% off- see interview below for details.
