Bloons TD Review
When I was back at school, any “study” period I had, used to be spent playing games, most notably the free online game Bloons Tower Defence. It was a fantastic game which I hoped would one day make its way to the PSP. Now it has! Just like all tower defence games, the object is to build towers, upgrade them and use your best strategic mind to stop wave after wave of enemies. Bloons TD sends 50 waves of balloons at you at over 15 courses (3 from the online version) with easy, medium and hard levels. You start with red balloons which only need one dart to pop them, but soon go to other coloured balloons which have more balloons inside to pop, faster balloons and special balloons. To assist is a wide range of towers (or monkeys) each quite unique. There’s 8 different types, 3 aids (spikes, glue and an exploding pineapple!) and each can be upgraded 4 times (usually 2 for range and 2 for firepower). The balloons follow a set path, you place towers around this (unlike fieldrunners).
The game looks fantastic on the PSP, it’s colourful and well designed. The controls have been cleverly mapped with L button bringing up the tower menu. X used to place and choose each tower, Square slows down the cursor (which is crucial to be able to place them down in the exact location) and a very nice feature, triangle starts off each round and circle cancels. The good use of controls is one of its greatest feature and unclutters the screen as the tower menu only appears when pressing L and is hidden the rest of the time. The game, just like the best in tower defence, is incredibly addictive and 15 courses will keep you going for hours on end. I already own Fieldrunners and PixelJunk Monsters, two of the best tower defence games on the PSP and Bloons TD is on a par with them, I think it’s even better than Fieldrunners. If you’re new to tower defence this is a perfect start.
The game in whole is brilliant, well worth buying and I couldn’t recommend it more, so i’ve decided to focus on its few weaknesses then its many strengths. When the balloons are in full flow and you have several monkeys on screen at once, things do get very cluttered. It’s all very fast and letting a balloon through simply because you can’t access the spikes or another monkey fast enough is a bit annoying. The soundtrack is really good, catchy and well suited, but there is only the one song on loop and can be annoying after extended playing (although I tend to play for hours, just a small amount of time I don’t think would annoy everyone). The game stops after completing 50 waves, I always like games that give you the chance to keep going and it only lists your highest wave level, there’s no high score tables.
All these things though are very minor issues which don’t take away from the main game. It’s absolutely brilliant, highly time consuming (although you can save and quit if you’re in a rush) and one of the best tower defences around, I’d recommend it to new players and tower defence veterans. There are 5 versions online to play for free (and if you’re still not sure try Bloons Tower defence 3 online as a demo (the 3 tracks were taken from this version)) but if you’re like me and want tower defence on the move, this is the game to get!
Score 9/10
(I could have written more about it, but thought I’d keep it to a review length so if anyone has any questions, I’d happily answer them!)
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