Dictator Defense: The Most Addictive Defense Game since Fieldrunners
As a reviewer, one of the best indications that you should write about a game is that you do not want to stop playing the game long enough to write about it. Dictator Defense ($2.99 iTunes) by Digital Chocolate is just such a game for me, and it basically ate my entire weekend.
Meet the dictators
Digital Chocolate is one of my favorite, if not consistent, iPhone game developers. When they hit it, they knock it out of the park, and when they miss, they really blow it. But they definitely hit a big one with Dictator Defense. At its heart it’s a castle defense game, with just a hint of tower defense thrown in. The idea is that over the course of 40 levels (spread over 4 different dictators) you must defend your wall from being overrun by the various enemy forces. As the game progresses you unlock the ability to use different weapons as well as upgrade the ones you already have.
For the most part, enemies descend in a straight line from the top, with two exceptions: spies, and Bosses. Tower placement becomes critical as the levels increase in difficulty, as does properly managing your cash flow. To help you speed up your purchases, you are (on most rounds) able to build banks in addition to artillery which will periodically give you extra cash to make your tower purchases.
The game begins with the easiest Dictator, which sports a not-so-subtle resemblance to George Bush (in fact he’s actually called “Big George”) although THIS George shoots lasers out of his eyes. The early levels act as a tutorial of sorts but by around level 5 or so you are actually playing the game. This is great the first time around, but becomes a bit of an annoyance on subsequent re-plays (see ISSUES below). Upon defeating Big George you’ll meet up with an Arnold Schwarzenegger lookalike, Fidel Castro, and what appears to be Daryl Hannah’s one-eyed Kill Bill character. In order to help even the odds, on YOUR side you have a Rambo-clone you can call upon when you are hopelessly outgunned. The character design, sound effects, music and art are all well thought out and charming, although at first I wished for an extra 2-4 sprite frames for the characters, I eventually grew to love like the somewhat choppy animations.
ISSUES
Since I am thoroughly addicted to Dictator Defense, I feel I have a right to call it out on its biggest flaw. As I mentioned earlier, the game begins with the “Big George” level which acts as a tutorial for the game. The problem is, once you have beaten the game, if you want to replay a certain level, you need to restart FROM THE BEGINNING, easy levels and all. So for example, suppose you defeat the game on EASY, start playing the MEDIUM levels, then decide to try re-playing your favorite level 30 on EASY again. You need to start again at level 1 on EASY (not to mention you give up your current progress on MEDIUM). I would like to call out my recent puzzle game of choice Totemo as a good example of how the game SHOULD act. Totemo has 60 or so levels, but once you pass one, it is “unlocked”, and you could come back and replay it at any time. This requirement to have to always replay the easy levels in order to get to a level you have previously reached is unfortunately carried through for each of the three difficulty settings, which really sort of hampers replayability.
One final thought on replayability – which is the only area Dictator Defense is lacking – the game needs an actual SCORE. The goal of each level is to defend your wall and defeat the enemy, but there is no actual score to achieve, either from enemies killed, shortest time to defeat the board, an intact wall bonus, etc.. Throw in a global leaderboard (with me at the top) and this would easily be a 9.5 game. As is, I will have to take off a point or so for what I perceive as a hit to the game’s lasting value.
CONCLUSION
I beat Dictator Defense on all three difficulties this weekend, but that by no means means it is a short game. If anything it is a testament to the fact that I more or less played the game constantly during every free (and some NOT so free) minute I had. With a few tweaks to enhance replayability, Dictator Defense would be a nearly perfect castle/tower defense game, but even as is, it ranks as one of the best games of its kind for 2009.
Comments
2 Comments on Dictator Defense: The Most Addictive Defense Game since Fieldrunners
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Jon Conley on
Thu, 10th Dec 2009 2:48 pm
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Sergiales on
Thu, 11th Feb 2010 8:04 am
I think the problem with giving access to individual levels is that you wouldn’t have any funds when you began or actual equipment. In most of the castle games (I haven’t played this one yet), you build your inventory over the course of each level slowly.
I’m stuck at the third level (Fidel) in the “Without banks I”.
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