Description: Just Another Bland Tower Defence…

App Store Link

Info

Fullscreen Support	Mouse Support	File Size	Launch Date	Required Specifications
Yes	Trackpad Cautioned	43.5 MB——-	3rd October 2011	None Specified

Rating

Pros: Pretty graphics, quirky character and music.

Cons: Very bland and simple, no strategy needed, just like every other tower defence game you’ve played.

Review

We all know that tower defence is one of those genres that just doesn’t have much left to offer. Tower defence’s originality has taken hit after hit as the years have gone by until now where there’s almost no gold left in TD’s dirt, joining the ranks of FPS as one of the most crowded and explored genres in gaming. Rare exceptions include Jelly Defense and a reverse take in the form of Anomaly: Warzone Earth, but these gems are outnumbered by those that just don’t improve on the genre. Unfortunately, Devils at the Gate: Total Resistance falls into this huge pit. It’s a pretty game, but nothing different from what you’ve played countless times before.

This time round you’re protecting a Chinese god from the devils knocking down his door. Unfortunately, this pathetic deity doesn’t aid you in your quest and Devils at the Gate becomes a very basic tower defence. You place men along a path, each with their own unique abilities. There’s a melee guy, a rifleman, mortar team and a female political commissioner. These characters may look funky, but they all have generic attributes taken from other tower defences. One slows down enemies, the other enhances the soldiers around them and then there’s always the huge and powerful one that cost a ton. None of it’s different.

You can’t even upgrade your units real time in Total Resistance. Instead you unlock individual units by completing levels and this doesn’t give you a lot to do whilst playing. You can speed up the action, but most of the time you’ll be waiting to earn enough money to place on more tower. Although each level looks different, the gameplay is repeated. You more or less doing the same thing over and over. You may argue that that’s what the genre is all about but there’s nothing in Devils at the Gate that I can comment as being a standout selling point meaning the repetitive routine becomes all the more apparent.

Easily the best thing about Devils at the Gate: Total Resistance is the art. The backgrounds are beautiful and what attracted me to the game in the first place, and the characters look funny. However, the two don’t work in harmony together. By going got a ‘unique perspective effect’ the enemies and defenders don’t seem grounded in their environment making it look more like a flat work of art.

If Devils at the Gate: Total Resistance had arrived a couple of years ago then maybe it would have stood a chance. But since the tower defence revolution has been and gone, it seems as if Devils at the Gate is just a straggler desperately trying to keep up with the gaming trend.