Tower defense games are fairly common these days. Simple base that you can craft to your own theme or special features. They’re often not very original, but sometimes a unique flair can really make or break games in the genre. This was shown to me not too long ago with Defense Grid: The Awakening. Comet Crash is another Tower Defense game for the PS3 developed by Pelfast available now for 9.99 us.
Largely unlike Defense Grid, which has set a bench mark for tower defense titles for me, there is no story and no voice acting in Comet Crash. Comet Crash is a tower defense title of the fairly barebones variety. Save for the largely unseen story that you’re trying to take back a comet from an enemy that has overrun said comet, there’s little to be had in exposition.
The game uses much of the same elements in most tower defense games. Set up towers in key positions, upgrade them, combination of certain towers work better than others. Much like Defense Grid these towers are used to control the path of your enemy as it moves to destroy your base. The primary difference between Defense Grid and Comet Crash is that utilizing these paths is more creative in one over the other.
Comet Crash has several maps, in both the single player and the multiplayer, to utilize creating paths with the towers as a primary means of strategy. The feature is a great idea, and will likely become a common trend in tower defense games, as evident by the usage of it in Defense Grid which came out after Comet Crash, but it’s not particularly executed well in this game. Every map in the game looks as though they took a template, used a map editor function and slapped down some already built boundaries. There’s no creatively and well modeled unique maps, just frankly half-assed maps.
What’s even more disappointing with the game is the lack of special features. There is mulitplayer, but no online competitive modes, just a online score board and local multiplayer. The unimpressive maps might make you think that you can create your own because of their unimpressive visuals, but there is no such thing. There’s a campaign but it’s not particularly interesting or noteworthy, just an levels that introduce each tower.
What Comet Crash to differentiate itself from other tower defense games is add a tower that allows you to dispense units, which is how you win a battle. You slap down some units, and send them out to try and destroy the enemy base while defending your own. This feature makes the game feel more like an RTS than anything and adds an extra level of micromanagement but doesn’t really help much to benefit strategy. In the beginning you just get a simple unit with low armor, then one with more armor, and then it gets more interesting with more varied units but in all the feature is one I’d gladly dispense of for more detailed maps and features that by now should be staple.
Comet Crash is a very plain tower defense game with RTS elements. It lacks some features I’d expect to be added to most games, especially with in this genre, in this day and age. There’s not really much this game does well or poorly, it just does a poor job of being very unimpressive with more high quality tower defense games out there. It’s not quite fair to compare the game to Defense Grid, but given the option I’d more readily spend the money on Defense grid which offers much more for the same price, but their both exclusive to their own consoles. I’d be hard pressed to recommend this game, especially with some more artistic and creative tower defense games out, like PixelJunk Monsters on the same console for a cheaper price