The last we saw of Ngmoco’s upcoming tower defense title Star Defense was at the studio’s San Francisco offices during GDC 2009. At that time, the game engine looked remarkable and they were still tweaking the gameplay before the final release.
Ngmoco released new screenshots and a video today in the lead up to the May release of the title.
In Star Defense, players take control of the captain’s chair and travel to a series of planets invaded by alien S’rath forces. Twisting and spinning complete 3-D planets, players must examine the terrain to plan tower defenses, selecting from a broad range of turrets that unleash everything from burning hot plasma to high voltage decimation.
The game comes with seven different planets (maps), five upgradable tower types, 10 types of enemy invaders, and three levels of difficulty.
We spent considerable time with Star Defense at Ngmoco and found it to be very playable, with natural controls and great responsiveness. The planetary graphics and accompanying galactic backdrops are impressive and the overall play mechanic feels very solid. Make no mistake, tower defense fans are in for something special.
See Ngmoco’s Star Defense trailer.
The video that Touch Arcade took at the Ngmoco offices can be seen here.
We’ll take a much closer look at Star Defense when it makes its App Store debut in early May. Stay tuned.
Looks friggin sweet and I like how they're evolving the tower defense concept instead of simply making YATD game.
That's one polished TD game.
Looks like a well polished game, but even for a hardcore TD fan like myself, I might take a pass on this one. It appears to still have the same concept as the other TD's except this one's in 3D around a world, which is one big reason why I'm not into it. I'm a realist when it comes to games, and setting up defenses for a tiny planet seems a bit odd to me. Graphically I still have a few complaints. Like why does the laser beam look like a flat and simple ray coming from a flashlight? The graphic effect of the flashlight weapon in The Creeps looks better. In fact looking at the trailer, I could say that they didn't put much effort on the projectiles of most weapons (best visual effects for projectiles and explosions are in Geodefense). And I'm surprised that despite the theme of the game, the "slowing" defense structure appears to emit goo ala-Fieldrunners, and it doesn't quite match in my opinion with the overall feel of the game. But again despite all these complaints, this seems like a well polished game considering the current games available, and I'm sure this will make some noise in the App Store. But I'm just not into it. I'm looking forward to the next UNIQUE TD game that will come out.
Sounds like it's more than just eye candy. I was hoping for that kind of review!
The first video of game play looks much better than this one. Looks like they went with a cartoony look rather a metal/realistic look. Interesting, should be a hit.
Doesn't even look good
I think I will keep sentinel thank you very much.......
Hah. So why should I spend five bucks on this?
Because it's EXACTLY like all the other ones but with crappier graphics and it has shiny 3D!!!
Imagine how long the novelty will last
Then it hits ya.......
I just spent five bucks on this
I'll wait to see TAs long drawn out advertisment before I make any rash decisions
(such as ban ngmoco from appaniper....)
But anyways, thank god for screenshots and video. Or else five bucks might have been lost......
Come on people, perfectly good TD games in store already
Dungeon defense, fieldrunners, the creeps, 7 cities, geodefense, elemental monster, sentinel, iT'D, motem, ect.....
I think it looks like crap to be honest. The light effects aren't impressive at all, and c'mon, no shadows? And it doesn't even look fun to play!
you know, like mom always used to say......
if you cant beat it make an exact carbon copy of it and brand it from ngmoco!
I also am very unimpressed with this trailor. What happened? Did they just give up. Pass from me!
I've updated the post to include a link to the story w/ video that we took while out at the Ngmoco offices. Do look at both. We were very impressed with what we saw, the game in hand.
watched other video
impressions
anyone else notice they die BEFORE the bullets hit them?
the graphics on towers and planets are superb
the enemys?
not so much
hopefully the health system is changed whereas when you hit someone, the green disappears in the health bar instead of changing colors
is there any new strategy elements?
how many upgrades do towers have?
do towers change in appearance when upgraded?
is "god" mode an actual mode?
basically, this sums it up
is there anything that differentiates it from sentinel?
(other then 3D)
I don't think "god mode" is an actual mode. Just set for demo purposes. Towers do change appearance with upgrades.
Aside from the graphics/3D, you can't yet compare the game to any other TD game yet. No one outside of Ngmoco knows how the gameplay balance is. And for Tower Defense, gameplay balance is pretty key.
So, there's no point in debating whether or not the game is "better" than Sentinal yet. Graphically, it's pretty damn impressive. Gameplay wise, we'll have to wait until it comes out.
arn
Hm. This is the most unique looking TD game I've seen. Odd that it's being criticized for not being unique.
Looks great to me considering the platform. For me, I'll have to taste some of the gameplay before I can judge it overall.
Exactly Lankershim. Idiots on here are saying that this game should be ignored in favour of one of the many exisiting TD games because it 'only' offers one major difference, i.e the 3D map. That makes it more unique than the current slew of tower defense games that are all just slight variations of each other!!
Wait until it has been released to judge it fully; but regardless of how well it turns out, at least they have tried something new with the genre.