Sweetwater Defense Review

Tower defense games were very popular at the dawn of the App Store. Most of them weren't very good quality games, though still sold well because they were the best out there. If the tower defense games that are released today were out in the first few months of the App Store, customers would realize that TD games like Sweetwarer Defense are completely out of TapDefense and Fieldrunners' league.

Sweetwater Defense, $2.99, by Werebear Games, is a tower defense game with a few unique twists. It has a whopping 26 levels, and beautiful 3D graphics. Also included are 7 towers, and 11 enemies, excluding bosses. On top of that, a rewind feature, which allows you to go back in time to a different wave on a map, and a section with enemy and tower statistics, are included in the game.

Once you start up the game, it allows you to start a new game, resume a game, or go to the guide. If you start a new game, a map appears, which you can scroll around in and zoom. 

You can tap on any of multiple spots on the map, and a preview of the level pops up. It lists how many lives you get, how much gold (money in the game) you start out with, how many waves there are, and what the difficulty is. Once in the level, you can scroll by swiping, and zoom in and out by pinching and reverse pinching. To build a tower, drag from the icons at the bottom of screen to the spots on the map. To fast forward or pause, drag the button at the right side of the screen up and down. Double tap on it to access a menu where you can restart the map from a certain wave.

Since the game has 26 levels, it lasts you a long time. Also, you can always replay the levels with a different strategy, or always try to improve your score, so that makes the game last even longer. The price of $2.99 is an incredible deal for the game, because, if you do the math, you are only paying about 12 cents for each level!

Though the game has so much content, some of that content is hard to beat. Even the easy levels are very challenging, and it would be great to have more difficulties for each level. Also, the scrolling in a level isn't completely fluid, and it has a slight bit of stuttering. (Though that might have to do with the fact that I played the game on a 1st generation iPod Touch, which is the slowest iDevice)

Pros:

26 Levels

3D Graphics

Only $2.99

Cons:

Very Challenging

Scrolling Isn't Fluid

Bottom Line:

This is one of the best Tower Defense games in the App Store, along with Defender Chronicles, Sentinel 2, Star Defense, and others. If you are a TD fan, all of those above are almost necessary purchases.

Scores:

Graphics: 4.5/5

Gameplay: 4/5

Controls: 5/5

Replay Value: 4.5/5

Overall: 9/10 (not an average)

Link: Sweetwater Defense, $2.99