Revenge of the Titans - a micro review

After a friend of mine kept telling me how awesome it was I went ahead and purchased Revenge of the Titans through steam (for $15 at the time of writing). I thought I'd thow out a short little review for it.

Revenge of the Titans is a cross between a real time strategy game and a tower defense game. While that sounds a little weird the game succeeds at it beautifully. On each level you have to build and defend your headquarters as well as refineries from waves of creeps that come from a variety of directions. Like Harvest: Massive Encounter (also worth checking out) the creeps come from all over the place and follow no set path. You can corral them using an assortment of mines and barriers as you channel them towards your towers. All the while keeping an eye on your limited resources. It makes for gameplay that edges towards hectic but stays manageable striking a very nice balance that leaves me wanting to keep playing for just one more level. Generally thats a good sign.

The art style is wonderfully retro. The 2d monsters and towers smoothly animated and looking great. The soundtrack harkens back to the days of the snes and unlike most games I play these days I didn't opt to turn it off and run winamp in the background. The characters that help guide your experience from the menus are charmingly stylized and deliver some fairly funny lines in between the levels.

After each of the levels in the campaign and challenge modes you are allowed to select a single item to research. With dozens of items combining to allow access to further items. The system is deep enough to be fun without being a time sink in between levels. Allowing you to jump back into the action relatively quickly.

Overall the game is nicely balanced. With a quick pace and a campaign design that keeps you in the action and out of the menus the game is well worth the price of admission for anyone who enjoys tower defense games. Puppygames did an excellent job and I hope they keep going down the retro path. They certainly seem to have a knack for it.