Gamevil's epic action RPG Zenonia [App Store] can now be had for 50% off, knocking the price down to $2.99. We've extensively covered Zenonia in the past between our review, then announcing the update that fixed most of the problems we found initially, and the whole time the thread in our forums has been going crazy.

Zenonia Lite [App Store] is also available, and we really recommend giving it a try. The controls still take some time to get used to, but Zenonia remains unrivaled in the action RPG genre on the iPhone.

Chillingo's Defender Chronicles [App Store] is also on sale today for 99¢. The game takes a new spin on tower defense games, and is presented in a sideways view where you defend from creeps that are either climbing up or down a mountain. With extensive voice over work and RPG elements scattered throughout the game, Defender Chronicles is worth a look if you're seeking additional games to add to your tower defense collection.

Our review has more details on the gameplay as well as a brief video.

App Store Link: Zenonia, $2.99 – Defender Chronicles, 99¢

Part of the plan behind Sony's somewhat puzzling announcement of the $250 PSP Go at E3 this year came in to focus today with the unveiling of Subatomic Studios' plans to bring Fieldrunners [App Store] to the Playstation Network library of downloadable games.

Fieldrunners, of course, is an original tower defense game that made its debut as an iPhone app late last year. Fieldrunners has been a huge success on the iPhone platform and this seems to represent the first time an original iPhone title is making its way to another platform.

While Sony's PSP SDK is nowhere near as open as Apple's, there are over 50 developers currently working on producing content for the PSP Go. Ash Monif, COO of Subatomic Studios comments on Sony's plans:

“This initiative is about bringing the lighter, lower barrier content to the PSP that has been so successful in other categories. You don’t see this happening at Microsoft and you even don’t see it happening at Nintendo yet. Part of that ‘snackability’ of the content is because you can deliver the content over WiFi super-fast. We’re making games that are just 20MB each, that’s less than a minute to download – instant gratification, snackable content. This is an opportunity for the premier indie developers – and I hope we represent that group – to come in and offer content that will fit the PSP.”

Various "snackable" games like Fieldrunners have been runaway hits on the App Store, but is the gameplay strong enough to stand alone without the intuitive touch interface of Fieldrunners for the iPhone?

App Store Link: Fieldrunners, $2.99

There's no question that Origin 8 had a hit on their hands with the original Sentinel: Mars Defense [App Store], a game that firmly held the title of my favorite tower defense game for a very long time.

Originally pitting players against a savage alien onslaught on the surface of Mars, Sentinel 2: Earth Defense [App Store] brings the fight home. A brief text introduction explains that despite your best efforts, the defense of Mars failed. Your drop ship, Sentinel, received a massive arms upgrade, and now you're forced to defend Earth. While not exactly a riveting plot, it gets the job done.

Where Sentinel 2 lacks in plot development, it more than makes up in overall gameplay. Now, before I get too far in to this, readers should be aware that I'm a tower defense nut. (Which comes as somewhat of a surprise to me since before I got in to iPhone gaming, tower defense games never interested me much.) Also, fellow tower defense nuts, I fully realize that labeling certain games in the genre as the "best" is as controversial as labeling the "best" Star Wars movie among Star Wars nerds. (Pre-remastering Return of the Jedi on Laser Disc of course.)

So, with that out of the way, prior to the release of Sentinel 2, I thought Sentinel was one of the best tower defense games on the App Store. The graphics were superb, the music was well done, the game performed great on my iPhone 3G (even while using the fast forward mode), but best of all, Origin 8 really nailed it with the balancing of the game.

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The tower defense genre has arguably seen a good deal of growth and evolution with many significant new releases this year. Defender Chronicles: Legend of the Desert King [$2.99] is one of the latest, and delivers a solid fixed-path TD game with RPG elements offering gamers a new twist. Whether or not you’re into the fantasy medieval theme, the gameplay itself provides enough challenge and depth that you may want to check it out.

Defender Chronicles is one of the more visually beautiful games you will see. From the 5 beautifully drawn maps to the equally detailed defenders and enemies, the details and effort from the developer is obvious so you won’t be short on eye candy. One unique aspect is the 2D side view in which the game is played. Think of it an elaborate staircase viewed from the side.

The 2D view itself provides a different dimension to the genre. The game definitely involves quick thinking and understanding the enemy because the attack waves can be intense and rapid. In many cases, you will want to think through where specific defenders are placed based on the type of enemy which will attack by land and air. Also, plan ahead because when as a defender is upgraded, he is also temporarily unavailable. And if your defender is overrun, he won’t appear at his post for a period of time which obviously can be bad.

With an epic soundtrack conveying the medieval theme, each quest is briefly introduced with voiceovers and text which is well presented and shows the polish of the game. The text may be difficult to read for some, but the accented voiceovers help that a bit. The voiceovers can be overdone (you can turn them off), and even as you upgrade or rejuvenate defenders, accompanying voiceovers will shout battle cries.

The objective is to defend the General Headquarters by destroying enemies which in turn earn gold. The gold can then be used to upgrade defenders, and in the case of Defender Chronicles, victories that can be applied to RPG elements. An optional tutorial is presented in the first quest, but to a certain degree I wish an overview of the different enemies and bosses were also included for reference.

As the Hero, you command 6 types of defenders—warrior, archer, berserker, ranger, halfling, and mage—each with its own unique abilities and upgradeables. Your defenders will battle a variety of enemies from Gnoll Captains, Orc Chieftains, and Queen Goblins to the fearsome Wyrm Rider Duo, Awe Inspiring Giant Golems and Meat Chomping Slimeballs.

The RPG elements add to the overall gameplay and the replayability. The Hero can be upgraded in terms of skills, powers and defenses. This comes of in the form of skill points and stars earned. Depending on the level of difficulty and the success you have, you earn stars and points that can be used to upgrade your hero and unlock new quests, artifacts, and features. You will find yourself playing levels over just to earn more items to take into the subsequent battles.

The game offers 5 standard maps/levels—Great Sands, CloudPass, Marshwood, Breewich, Silver Keep— which represent battles against the evil Orc Hordes and the rising Undead, and can be played in any of 4 difficulty settings: casual, veteran, master, heroic. In addition, there are 5 game modes – campaign, freestyle, extended, classic and classic extended. A coming 1.2 update will add an additional map with more planned on the way.

You earn stars as you progress which opens the door to two additional resources — the Trade Shop and Great Library. With Trade Shop, items such as armor, swords, magical rings, and other equipment can be acquired to upgrade your hero. You can also spend stars in the Great Library, which unlocks 8 secrets including an extra map, music and two additional defenders. Note that a few users seem to have had issues with crashing but a submitted 1.1 update is said to have corrected this issue. Apart from this, the game has been very well received in our forums.

Defender Chronicles is a fixed path TD with specific build spots for placing defenses. Fixed path vs. non-fixed path comes down to preference for many, but frankly, each offers enough differences in gameplay that I think you shortchange yourself by focusing on one over the other. Defender Chronicles combines a solid TD game with RPG elements all wrapped up in a polished presentation. While the tutorial could use additional work to explain certain elements, the game itself presents enough variety in terms of upgrades, unlockables and replayability that make Defender Chronicles a standout in the genre.

Chillingo and a dozen other companies are presently sponsors of this site, but that does not affect our choice of coverage or influence our reviews.

One of the big surprises to me in iPhone gaming is how much I’ve been drawn to tower defense games. I never really understood why people were so into them back when the Warcraft III tower defense maps were so popular (and don’t even get me started on Defense of the Ancients) but the iPhone quite literally is the perfect platform for these types of games. Ngmoco's Star Defense [App Store] is the latest in the series of tower defense games for the iPhone and with the Twitter challenge as well as the early review copy I was sent, I’ve managed to sink a ridiculous amount of time into this game.

The basics of Star Defense are no different from any other tower defender, and if you’re even remotely familiar with the genre you won’t need any explaining to pick it up instantly. You place towers along a path to defend your shield wall from hordes of S’rath invaders, kill them to get credits to buy more towers or upgrade your existing ones, survive for a certain number of waves, and win. Standard stuff.

What sets Star Defense apart from the other tower defense games on the iPhone is having to build your towers on 3D spheres (cubes in later levels) and constantly managing the viewport of the game using standard iPhone gestures. It’s all very intuitive and works exactly as you would expect, pinching controls zooming, a single finger swipe moves the camera, and two fingers on the screen rotates it. Handling the camera creates an effect similar to fog of war in real time strategy games, and as the path the S’rath travel down snakes all over the planet you’re defending, you’re only ever capable of seeing half of it at a time.

Included in the game are five tower types which cover the standard array of towers we’ve seen in other tower defense games. Gauss Turrets serve as the standard low-cost tower, Neo-Plasma Blasters have a damage over time effect, DX-3 Cannons slow enemies, Phase Coils do area effect damage, and Quantum Launchers do high single target damage. Naturally, each can be upgraded, and part of the strategy of Star Defense is deciding when to upgrade and when to build more, as each upgrade is progressively more expensive.

Additionally, each tower has a damage type which may be more or less effective depending on the enemy. For example, some of the S’rath are resistant to fire, so your massive array of Neo-Plasma Blasters will be rendered ineffective. Obviously this forces you to have a variety of towers, which adds a level of complexity as some tower defense games are just a race to fill up the map with whatever the best tower is fully upgraded.

In this initial offering of Star Defense players can fend off the S’rath across seven different planets, as well as playing an endless Challenge mode. Each planet can be played on three difficulty levels, and I found them to be varied enough that each one required a different strategy to complete. ngmoco previously detailed on their blog about the work that went into balancing the way Star Defense plays, and it really shows.

Playing the game on Easy is, unsurprisingly, very easy. Unless Star Defense is your first tower defense game, I’d recommend starting on Normal. I’ve found Hard to be brutal, and while I haven’t yet broken out the ol’ pad of graph paper to map out some of the levels as I did when competing in the Twitter challenge, I’m getting close to it.

Instead of achievements in Star Defense, you earn commendations. Some of them will be easy and you will earn them without even trying, but others like completing 40 waves without selling any towers or upgrading 1000 towers total will take some work.

The included galaxy map is a great time, but the Challenge mode is where the meat of the game is going to be for hardcore players looking to compete against friends. This is exactly what we played in the Twitter challenge, so give it a try and see how you could have done against us.

Star Defense was demonstrated during the WWDC 2009 keynote, and towards the end, ngmoco's Stephanie Morgan revealed the ability to (BAM!) add a second galaxy to your pocket via microtransaction downloadable content (DLC) add-on packs. DLC has been a hot topic lately on our forums, and I’ve seen some people suggest that Star Defense is an incomplete game that simply a vehicle to sell things that should have been included in the release.

As I posted in a previous story, this is an area that ngmoco seems to be taking very seriously. I asked several people at the press event what their plans were with DLC and everyone stressed that they were approaching it cautiously, being sure to provide a good value to the gamer, with no intentions to nickel and dime anyone. Morgan mentions in the keynote video that the additional galaxies add tons of gameplay, so I’m having a hard time getting worked up over them selling add-ons for the game if they do in fact substantially increase the originally included playtime. And with that said, Star Defense is certainly a complete game in its current form.

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

So I suppose the inevitable question here is do I recommend Star Defense? It is more expensive than its competitors, but it does have all the fit and finish you would expect in an ngmoco game. The 3D graphics are great, the backgrounds are colorful, and I really enjoy the 3D camera management of the game. Star Defense gets incredibly hectic in later levels when multiple waves of S’rath are out at once, as all your towers need to be managed in real time. This is a welcome change from other similar games where you pause, build a few things, wait to get more money, and repeat. Star Defense brings an unexpected level of action to a genre that classically just has you building and waiting.

Because of this, I can’t help but recommend picking up Star Defense. Its classic tower defense gameplay combined with the unique 3D perspective puts Star Defense a step above my 2D tower defense favorites.

Ngmoco and a dozen other companies are presently sponsors of this site, but that does not affect our choice of coverage or influence our reviews.

ngmoco's Star Defense [App Store] is finally here for $5.99! I competed in the Twitter Challenge a while ago and I've had my hands on the final copy for a few days now. So far, Star Defense has been an enjoyable spin on the tower defense genre. Expect a full review soon, but for now, here's part of the press release ngmoco sent out:

In Star Defense, players battle hordes of alien S’rath invaders in their quest to save human outposts across the galaxy. Using innovative Multi-Touch controls, players twist, spin, and zoom-in on breathtaking 3D planets and examine the terrain to plan their defenses.

Armed with a powerful arsenal of five classes of towers, for a grand total of 15 different weapons, players strategically place turrets that unleash everything from burning hot plasma to high-voltage decimation. The S’rath regularly fortify their troops with new unit types, new formations and new armor. Survival depends on the player’s ability to respond to their maneuvers in real time.

Innovative integration with social networks allows players to expand their campaigns and compete with friends over Twitter, Facebook, or email. They can also check out scores posted by other Star Defense players and take on all challengers by searching for #StarDefense on Twitter.

With seven unique planets, two different game modes, more than 50 Medals and Commendations to be earned on the field, and three different difficulty settings available at launch, Star Defense offers endless replayability for newcomers and war-hardened veterans alike.

ngmoco will provide regular updates to the game with expansion packs, bringing new weapons, planets, invaders and new modes of gameplay to the Star Defense universe.

As I mentioned in the keynote post, we have a ngmoco press conference to attend at 4:00 PM PST. I'm not sure what is going to be discussed, but hopefully we'll find out a little more about their plans with the future of Star Defense.

Update: ngmoco posted on our forums clarifying the content of the game and future updates:

For $5.99, you are getting the full SD experience. That's an entire seven-planet galaxy, three difficulty modes, and a challenge mode. We'll also be regularly updating the game with free content.

Once 3.0 launches, we'll be offering much larger expansion packs for sale.

App Store Link: Star Defense, $5.99

Limbic Software's previously announced TowerMadness game has arrived in the App Store [link]. TowerMadness is an open map tower defense game that offers a zoomable 3D camera that lets you follow the action from various perspectives.

Like all tower defense games, the objective is to defend your base (in this case herd of sheep) from the waves of enemies (aliens). TowerMadness offers 16 different enemies consisting of aliens, bugs, and flying vehicles of varying sizes and strengths. Each enemy destroyed provides you more money to buy new towers and upgrade existing towers. If you let too many enemies through the game is over.

The 3D engine allows you to easily view the action from overhead or pinch all the way down for a first-person view of the action. So you can literally watch aliens walking down the path and get a close inspection of the weapons. Visually the 3D engine works well and played smoothly on both the iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 2G, and the character graphics were adequate. While the zoomable 3D landscape works well, I'm not sure how much it really adds to gameplay. I suspect most players will simply find a comfortable zoom level and stick with it throughout the duration of the game.

[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]

The game comes with 4 maps categorized by difficulty (Easy, Medium, Hard, Madness) as well as the potential for additional downloadable content. Limbic Software has already included one additional downloadable map called "Sandbox" which allows you to test different strategies with practically unlimited funds. None of the maps, however, include an "unlimited" mode which may limit replayability once you master the included levels.

The game's controls are demoed in the above video by the developer and worked well in practice. Tapping on a location brings up a menu that allows you to select which towers to buy. Limbic also includes an extensive "Towerpedia" reference in the game which details all the attributes of each tower and their upgrades. Meanwhile, tapping and holding on a tower in-game will bring up a quick-reference. The game includes 9 different towers with 5 upgrades each, but only a subset of weapons may be offered depending on the map.

Aside from the 3D viewpoint, one somewhat unique feature the game offers is the ability to replay the games of others on the online high score list. (We've previously seen a similar feature in Jason Rohrer's Passage game.) The system works quite well with the ability to playback games at up to 8x speed. For a game like this, however, I would recommend not watching the replays, especially on levels you haven't solved yourself. Knowing the optimal solution to a map basically ruins most of the fun of playing an open-map tower defense game which tends to involve a lot of trial and error.

TowerMadness offers a somewhat fresh perspective on the tower defense genre which has become a very popular genre on the iPhone and iPod Touch. While the 3D engine is nice, we hope that they are able to somehow take more advantage of it in the future, as we're not sure it adds much to the gameplay at this time. The game, however, is well put together and for only $1.99 may be hard to pass up for tower defense fans. The feature I think that's most compelling is the fact that TowerMadness is an open-map design akin to Fieldrunners which requires you to create your own path. Most competing games offer a fixed-path map structure which some players may not find as enjoyable.

Big Albie also contributed to this review.

Russell Bernau of Super Squawk Software let us know that he has submitted a major version update to his popular Tower Defense game The Creeps! [App Store].

The Creeps! is a fun and charming Tower Defense game that has been a reader favorite. The game incorporates a a few twists to the Tower Defense genre, including the presence of physical objects (trees, gravestones) that must be destroyed before you can build towers on those spots. An abbreviated list of changes include:

• New location added: "Under the Ocean"
• Added 5 new ocean themed Creeps (and boss versions of all 5)
• Added 4 new "Survival" maps
• Added 4 new "Endurance" maps
• Added a new game type: "Door Buster" (Race against the clock, objective is to destroy the door!)
• Added 6 new "Door Buster" maps
• Added New Tower: "Paper Shuriken" (moves in straight line until it hits a terrain obstacle, piercing through creeps along the way, high damage)
• Added New Tower: "Piggy Bank" (doesn't attack, collects coins via interest. Break open to get the cash, but once broken it cannot be used again)
• Added difficulty levels (Easy, Normal, Hard)
• Added Fast Forward (double speed)

Super Squawk has also published a series of videos that demonstrate some of the new features. This one shows the new Paper Shuriken and Piggy Bank towers:

App Store Link: The Creeps!, $1.99

Sentinel [App Store] is one of the best tower defense games out for the iPhone, and it's just getting better with age thanks to Origin8's commitment to updates and improvements. 1.4 features a hefty helping of new content, as well as some much needed balance changes.

At $2.99, Sentinel was hard to pass up, but with the addition of new maps, enemies, and turrets and $0.99 price drop, this is a must-have for anyone interested in the genre.

Here is the complete list of changes in 1.4:

• New map added
• New type of turret added
• New enemy added
• New destroyably structure added
• In-game music is now available
• Repair drones now have a toggle for repair/harvest
• Easy and Medium skill settings are now easier
• Hard and Psycho skill settings are now harder
• Many minor balance changed and bugfixes

My favorite feature of Sentinel is the repair bots, and having the ability to toggle their functionality is going to add a whole new layer to playing the game. Getting them out early gathering extra resources is vital for quick tower upgrades… But can your base manage without repairs?!

As soon as I'm finished with this week's Star Defense Tournament, I'm sitting down for some quality time with the new Sentinel update.

App Store Link: Sentinel, $0.99 (sale)

A few days ago we were invited by ngmoco:) to enter a competition against several other gaming sites by playing an early release of their highly anticipated tower defense game, Star Defense.

The rules are simple: ngmoco:) posts a challenge in the morning, we all survive as many rounds as we can, then post our high scores on Twitter. Each day the highest scoring competitors advance, and whoever does the best by Friday will be the Star Defense champion!

(To keep track on my progress as I represent Touch Arcade in the Mayday! Twitter Challenge, follow @hodapp. If you want to see how I'm comparing against other people competing, either check out the #StarDefense hash tag, or go to the ngmoco:) Star Defense site and click the "Mayday! Twitter Challenge" link.)

If you've already been following my Twitter feed, you've no doubt noticed I've been playing most of the day and I really like what I've seen so far. Star Defense takes the tried and true tower defense genre that many iPhone gamers have come to love and mixes things up by having your enemies path along a 3D sphere.

I'll admit, when I saw the first videos, I was undecided as to whether or not this would turn out to be an amazing gameplay element or merely a gimmick. But after already losing track of how many games I've played, I can safely say that it's going to be very hard to go back to my former non-3D tower defense favorites.

The camera controls are remarkably intuitive, and anyone familiar with the classic iPhone gestures will be right at home without any kind of tutorial. Everything works exactly how you would expect, complete with inward and outward pinching gestures to zoom, using two fingers to rotate, and dragging your finger to pan the camera. Your array of towers to choose from lines the right side of the screen, and the left side displays information about the current wave of enemies as well as how long until the next wave emerges.

Like most games in the genre, Star Defense features different damage types from each tower, such as the "Neo-Plasma Blaster" setting enemies on fire and the "Phase Coil" inflicting electrical damage. As you progress through the waves of enemies, you eventually encounter some that are resistant to certain types of damage. While it may seem like a good idea to amass "Gauss Turrets" since they're so cheap and seemingly effective early on, heavily armored enemies will later walk right by them without breaking a sweat.

The tower types and the variety of enemies, while being pretty cool, aren't what make Star Defense what it is. The 3D viewpoint, and only ever being able to see half of the world you're defending at a time, creates an amazingly hectic and fast paced experience. Between zooming in to precisely place towers and manage upgrades, and zooming out and quickly panning the camera around to see if any enemies got by your existing defenses, you rarely have a chance to rest between waves.

I'm really blown away with Star Defense, and what I've seen so far is only a fraction of what the complete game is going to be. This early build is not a full release and only allows access to the designated challenge levels. With any luck, I'll fare pretty well in the tournament. I'm currently holding the highest score having survived 49 rounds, with the second best only coming in at 34.

With a little refinement to my defense strategies, I think I stand a good chance at bringing home fame and fortune to Touch Arcade! Wish me luck!