Tower Defense: Lost Earth may be Com2uS’s best game yet, featuring a hefty campaign and full of upgrades. However, many developers are annoyed at Com2uS for trademarking “tower defense”, making this game an “official” tower defense game. The game delivers, but while I played, I felt there was something lacking. The gameplay and graphics are well done, and the visuals are crystal clear. The sound effects perform on par as well.

As the name describes, this is a game where you protect your base from invading creeps/enemies, much like Kingdom Rush. There are different “slots” to put the towers of your choice (that you can afford), which can blast and destroy the incoming invaders. In this game, there are many available towers to choose from, varying from gun turrets to lasers. Each tower has its own effectiveness on incoming enemies. For example, turrets are usually good against smaller, weaker creeps, while the cannons are targeted towards bunched up enemies for effective splash damage.

The gameplay was up-to-standard; there are multiple locations to place a wide variety of towers, and nice “pods” which contain resources if you blow them up (while you shoot  the “pods”, the towers cannot shoot the enemies). During the level, you never stop to pause and enjoy the scenery because you always have to keep building/upgrading or you’ll begin to allow enemies to pass through. Even after you beat a level, there are multiple difficulty levels to replay the certain map.

While there is one essential goal throughout the whole game – to defend the base – there are actually four other gameplay modes within the game: Defense, Survival, Resource, and Attack. Defense is your average cup of joe, no creamers or sugar, but it’s the backbone to your Monday morning. Defense is all about preventing the little creepers from reaching the base within the given waves. Every wave consists of different amount of enemies (including different types enemies). For Survival, it’s just the same thing, but you replace waves with a time countdown. It’s a little bit harder because it doesn’t give you the few seconds to strategize as Defense does. Resource replaces waves and the time limit with a resource requirement. Attack is probably the only frappuccino in this Star Bucks, where you strive to kill a stationary enemy on the map. In layman’s terms, its where you have to kill off the surrounding enemies before the waves get too strong.

For the most part, the game played smoothly, and felt well polished. Sometimes there were frustrating moments where you can’t get a perfect score on a level, and you dearly wish the rewind button found in iBomber Defense was available. Of course, that’s just a small OCD I can’t stress over, beating tower defense games without losing a life. Nonetheless, the hard levels were nice and challenging, and the gameplay wasn’t all that easy. Overall, the game is fun, stimulating, and definitely worth the money.

More information on Tower Defense: Lost Earth is available on their official website. The iOS version can be downloaded at the App Store for iPhone or iPad for $0.99.