14 DAY TRIAL // Ever since the advent of mobile gaming, lots of developers have tried to bring their creations onto such devices with more or less success, depending on the genre approached by their games.
The tower defense segment of the market flourished on mobile phones and tablets as the touchscreen controls proved to work rather well with setting up towers and defenses against rampaging foes, as opposed to first-person shooters and other genres that are trickier due to the input system.
The latest title to debut in the genre is Alien Creeps from developer Outplay Entertainment. As you can tell by its name, aliens are the enemies and the player must help defeat their onslaught in a variety of locations using towers and soldiers.
Does it manage to deliver a good time or should the aliens get it? Let's have a quick look.
I played Alien Creeps on the iOS platform, specifically on an iPad Air. The game is also playable on the iPhone and iPod Touch.
The first things you notice about the title are the graphics, which look quite impressive thanks to a stylized design, and some great pretty impressive 3D elements such as towers and heroes.
Afterwards, Alien Creeps starts its actual campaign tutorial, which walks you through the different types of towers, not to mention the role of your soldiers, heroes, and even the resources that you can drop into the game.
In terms of actual mechanics, you're tasked with organizing the defenses in front of waves of aliens. You can set up towers in certain spots by spending energy that's harvested by killing the foes. You also have a central Tesla tower with three charges that can be used for emergencies.
Towers range from classics like a machine gun one to ones equipped with lasers or rockets. There's also one facility that spawns soldiers at regular intervals.
Besides setting up the towers, you can also guide a hero unit on the battlefield to help in the alien-killing effort. What's more, you have a limited number of air strikes and reinforcements that you can call in.
Besides actually killing enemies, Alien Creeps also allows you to upgrade your existing towers and units. Here is where the in-app purchase strategy comes into play.
Alien Creeps TD is a free-to-play experience but researching upgrades requires in-game gold. You can buy said gold as well as diamonds that are used to instantly complete the researching. Essentially, while the microtransactions aren't that intrusive, it does get a bit tiresome to have to wait around 10 or 15 minutes for some upgrades to complete.
Overall, Alien Creeps is a pretty good-looking tower defense game that manages to add a few new things through its heroes and unit micromanagement. Check out some screenshots in the gallery below and a promotional video.
