What can there be said about Immortal Defense that has not been said already? Well, lots. Taking the premise of the tower defense genre and applying a story to it has rarely been effective, but Immortal Defense pulls it off with true grace and form. The paths the enemies take are explained with believability (as opposed to "Oh no I might step on the grass!") and you have genuine incentive to keep playing beyond the first few wins, both because you want more towers to fool around with and because the story is fascinating and well-written.

Immortal Defense's graphics can best be described as trippy. The gameplay is hyperactive and adrenaline-pumping. The strategic options, while not limitless, are significantly large in scope and allow players to customize the experience by customizing their towers. In short, Immortal Defense is what all the other tower defense games wish they could be: smart, elegant, and chock-full of delicious strategic offerings. It manages to be both fun and artsy at the same time, a feat which few games pull off. We also guarantee that the story will astonish, as it is quite possibly one of the best stories in gaming. The demo can be downloaded from the developer's website, and provides 30 of the 90 levels with all 10 difficulty settings. The full game can be bought from the same place!


Where Immortal Defense is artistic, Defense Grid is just plain excellent. It does not have the best story (Oh no, aliens are invading!) but it manages to be entertaining, pretty, and challenging all at the same time. We've also talked about it quite a bit before, both sharing our opinions and getting the developer's words on the game. But really, Defense Grid deserves the attention it gets, because it is a professional and well-executed game.

Playing a commander staving off an alien invasion, you are assisted by the previous commander, who is inside the computer you use. This translates, simply, to the previous commander being the story. The great thing about it is that your friend is not annoying, stupid, or cliche. He's smart and funny, and gives you good tips on a regular basis. The enemies, while not radically varied, are different enough to force you to approach them in different ways. Finally, the difficulty ramps up fast, giving good tower defense players the challenge they want almost as soon as they boot up the game! The demo is available right here on Big Download, and the full game can be found on several digital platforms such as Greenhouse or Steam.


GemCraft is a classic. While the first tower defense game labeled Gem TD first appeared in Warcraft 3, it bears little resemblance to the sleek and sexy browser game that GemCraft is, other than maybe the importance of gems. And where the custom map fell into obscurity, GemCraft only rose higher and higher, being a significant draw for players to both Kongregate as well as ArmorGames. So what is it that makes GemCraft so good, and why do players instinctively gravitate towards it?

GemCraft is unusual in that you don't actually build towers the traditional way. Rather, you build an empty vessel for your gems. You then use the gems and slot them into the tower, allowing it to attack. Certain colored gems have different attributes, and you can even merge gems into higher-level gems of the same colo or into multicolored gems that have several different bonuses and effects. On top of this, there is an overworld where you choose the map, a clever rating system that tells you how close you are to acing the level, and even an RPG system that lets you do things such as gain better gems at the start!


For some people, Desktop TD could be said to have ruined their work schedule. Many an employee has lost hours of potential work time to this addictive flash game , and it is really not all that complex in terms of enemies and towers. So what's the big deal behind it? Well, Desktop TD is one of the few games that allows for the complex (and incredibly entertaining) concept of mazing, and the amount of players that support this concept is massive.

Mazing, simply put, it creating a maze to optimize the amount of damage that enemies are dealt before they reach the end. In other words, instead of following a path the developer determined, the enemies follow a path that you create by blocking off potential avenues. It's an excellent gameplay feature that rare few tower defense games actually incorporate. It also has a variety of game modes (all of which retain the mazing feature) as well as leaderboards, for those interested. Desktop TD can be played on the developer's website.


Vector TD is not a big revolution in the world of tower defense games. All of the concepts that are shown within have been done before by other games. What Vector TD brings to the table is excellent balance, simplified gameplay, and best of all, style. And what a style it has. Clean art, catchy electronica, and an excellent interface all put Vector TD in the big leagues.

The biggest thing about Vector TD is the diversity of towers. There's several different towers, each of which is effective against a specific kind of unit. On top of this, all towers can be upgraded for half their original cost up to nine times. This greatly increases the damage and range of any towers, making upgrading far more important in Vector TD than in most other tower defense games. Upgrading is also a lot more simple with the aforementioned flat price, which makes it feel fluid, natural, and fun. Vector TD is exclusively hosted at Candyland.

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