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- 11 bit studios
- 11 bit studios
- 11 bit studios
- 11 bit studios
Anomaly Defenders
Released On: May 29, 2014
70
6.5
Where to Buy
Where to Buy
Metascore
Mixed or average
Based on 14 Critic Reviews
70
43% Positive
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
57% Mixed
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or average
Based on 14 Critic Reviews
70
43% Positive
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
57% Mixed
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Anomaly Defenders is a good final hurrah for the tower defense series from 11 Bit Studios. It has gorgeous maps, fun and hectic gameplay, and a lot of strategic opportunities via the deployable powers and the complex tech tree. What's more, the difficulty modes that affect the layout of the maps are quite impressive.
A solid tower defence experience that really does raise the bar for the tower defence genre. It might still be the simplest example of strategy gaming out there, but at least this one has merit for long term play.
User Reviews
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The last chapter of the series is, unpredictably, the most conservative one. And it's a solid Tower Defense: but it's just another Tower Defense.
Defenders, unlike the previous titles, doesn’t do much to innovate or recreate the genre. Instead 11 Bit Studios decided to play it safe and gave us a basic, traditional tower defense game that is fun but doesn’t really do anything to set itself apart from an already flooded market.
This is, probably, the worse chapter of the series. It has several good ideas but the gameplay is still too basic.
Bright, colorful, fun, but too simple.
Earlier Anomaly games proved that a little innovation can go a long way, but you just don't see as much of that approach in action here, which results in an underwhelming and familiar return to the norm.
Anomaly Defenders is a short, and cheap looking game. As a fan of both Anomaly and Anomaly 2, I feel like developers just decided to have some easy money.
The only thing that is common between this game and the previous ones is the name. Indeed, this is a TD, not a reverse TD, so this should be expected. It is still pretty fun to play, since you will quickly remember all the units and you will have some idea about how your towers will work.
There are three difficulties in this game, they differ not only by the sheer number of enemies, but also by different map layouts. Speaking of maps, there are some with unique mechanics, which force you to use different strategies (which is always good to have).
Not when we are done with positive sides, let's look at the negatives.
The game indeed looks pretty cheap. Since it uses A2 engine and assets, it still looks great ingame, but the interfaces look like they were made in photoshop in 5 minutes. Which is very strange, since you will look at the interface through the whole game, right?
The story. In short - there is no such thing in AD. The one stub that is present is stupid and uninteresting.
The tech tree. Though having a tech tree in TD is a good idea in general, in AD you will not have to make a choice most of the time, since there is an optimal build where you can ignore anything else (yes, you will not even need to adapt it to "special" missions. Also I would like to point out the problem, where you encounter a hard mission, but instead of thinking of a strategy, you can just grind tech points on easy difficulty and then just breeze through it on hard.
So, as a result, we still got a solid TD, if you will play at hard difficulty, you will get some real challenge. But you will see no story, and probably become annoyed close to the end, because it becomes pretty repetitive.
TL;DR: 6/10, grab it on steam sale, if you are a fan of TD (or Anomaly), or don't, if you are not into it.
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Summary Anomaly Defenders is the closing installment of the Anomaly series. The original incarnation of the Tower Offense sub-genre had players controlling humans fighting alien invaders. Now, the tables have turned. The human counterattack is underway and the alien homeworld is under threat.
Platforms:
- PC
- iOS (iPhone/iPad)
Initial Release Date: May 29, 2014
Developer:
- 11 bit studios
Publisher: 11 bit studios
Genres:
