Game Review: Defense Grid: The Awakening

Defense Grid: The Awakening is a high quality Tower Defense game created by Hidden Path Entertainment. The story is that hundreds of years previously, a bunch of aliens attacked. After the aliens were (barely) defeated, the General who commanded the armies (or whatever) had his brain downloaded into a Defense Grid in case they ever attacked again. Well, now they are attacking again, and the Defense Grid awakens. That is, the Defense Grid is the AI that controls all aspects of the towers. Aiming, firing, building, upgrading, etc. You're just the guy who tells the Grid where to put stuff. The power cores provide electricity to the grid and that's why if they're all stolen, it's game over--because when they're gone, all the defenses power down.

The objective of the game, like all TD games, is to build defense towers along a path to prevent the aliens from reaching your base. Your "base" in this game is really the location of the power cores. It differs from most TD games I've played in that when the aliens actually reach the power cores and take them, they don't just disappear and the power core is not immediately lost forever^*. Instead, the aliens have to make their escape with the power cores. This gives you a chance to recover them if you kill them before they escape. When an alien carrying a power core is killed, the power core slowly makes its way back to the base. But if any other aliens are nearby, they can pick it up wherever it is when they reach it and start running toward the exit.