Goal Defense – tower defense game of Olympic-sport proportions!
by Antonio Wells
Aug 1, 2012 7:46 AM –
Install
Goal Defense is a tower defense game and the foes are athletes from a wide range of Olympic sports: baseball, football, bowling, skiing, and much more. This fun and zany variant of the gaming genre may look cute but can be quite the challenge as your goal is to stop hordes of players from reaching your trophy goal. Can you use enough strategy, speed and skill to stop them? Learn more in this app review!
Price: Free, plus In-App Purchases
Tested on: Samsung Galaxy S3
Content Rating: Everyone
Pros & Cons:
Pros
- Very challenging & addictive tower defense game now on Android!
- Cool theme, awesome sportsmen and weapon bonuses!
Cons
- Somewhat poor gaming threshold which will require some in-app purchases to progress.
Features:
Goal Defense is a tower defense game and your goal is to defend your goal from waves of jocks from different sports. You defend them by strategically positioning your available players using their strengths to attack. You only have so much cash available to purchase your defenders, plus you accumulate cash for each attacker you take down.
Here’s where I have a serious issue with the games “threshold”, as in some levels no matter how well you position your available force you will not be able to beat the level as the accumulating points won’t be enough for purchasing the necessary force to stop some waves. Thus, you’ll need to invest some real cash in the game to buy blue crystals which will allow you to purchase weapon and defender bonuses earlier than you would earn in later levels. What this did for my gaming experience was changed my need for using bonuses (i.e. sky rain of tennis balls, freeze-a-player snow, etc.) to a strategy dependency. Remember, using bonuses cost crystals, which are a minimum of 3 per use, plus you may earn only 1-2 crystals in a given level. Crystals are harder to earn, therefore, if you do not folk over cash to buy more in the Google Play Store you’re screwed.
You’ll notice an arrow path showing where your enemy will run, positioning your players on the grid can alter the direction in which they run, however, you cannot completely block their path. My personal technique in tower defense games is to make sure to crowd their launch point with heavy artillery and take out as may on the start as possible. Yet Goal Defense is brilliant and even more challenging as you cannot just place all your eggs in one basket with that strategy as the launch point can change mid game, or a bus load can be transported into a different launch point. Therefore you must have enough cash to position defenders where needed.
As with any tower defense game, you can ‘sell’ your defender, typically for half the amount you initially paid for them, plus you can ‘upgrade’ them up to three times. Upgrading defenders increase their attack radius, frequency and furiosity of attack.
Whether you earn them or buy them, you can get access to a comical arsenal including:
- Pitcher, pitches balls hard and fast, but not too far (works well with the Batter).
- Hummer Thrower, the guy is slow to start out, but hurts several enemies at once.
- Boxer, the guy knocks the enemy down with one powerful blow, but is slow to come around.
- Cheerleader, a sexy cheerleader in a mini is an expert at distracting and slowing down enemies.
- Batter, bats the ball hard but useless without pitchers around.
- Bowling Player, throws a heavy bowling ball, damaging all enemies in its path, but their path must be clear for them to be effective.
- Cap, improves performance of sportsmen around him.
- Plus more…
Watch on Mobile
-
-
Goal Defense Gameplay 1
-
-
Goal Defense Gameplay 2
-
-
Goal Defense Gameplay 3
-
-
Goal Defense Gameplay 4
-
-
Goal Defense Gameplay 5
-
-
Goal Defense Gameplay 6
-
-
Goal Defense Gameplay 7
-
-
Goal Defense Gameplay 8
-
-
Goal Defense End of Level
-
-
Goal Defense Menu
-
-
Goal Defense Storyline 1
-
-
Goal Defense Storyline 2
-
-
Goal Defense Storyline 3
-
-
Goal Defense Loading Screen with Helpful Tips
-
-
Goal Defense Purchase Diamonds
-
-
Goal Defense Bonuses
-
-
Goal Defense Bonuses 2
-
-
Goal Defense Levels – Liberty Land
-
-
Goal Defense Levels – Red Heat
Fun Factor & Addictive:
Goal Defense is quite fun and insanely addictive, however, the poor gaming threshold gives it a bit of a catch-22 dilemma. Meaning, you won’t earn enough cash in the game to properly take out enemies, therefore, you’ll need to purchase bonuses with real cash to assist you in order to advance. In my case, I found myself burning through blue crystals like it was a fire sale, with that sort of threshold and thinking long-term, it will be costly to continue to play the game. Else it would be extremely challenging to beat levels, thus reducing its longevity replay-ability factor.
Graphics:
The graphics are scruffy & cute, reminding me of the colorful style of a cartoon from my childhood Heathcliff and The Catillac Cats. You’ll get a few chuckles from the characters too, that’s if you can take your eyes away from the multi-tasking action of defense. Such as the Hummer Thrower’s complete neanderthal-confusion before tossing or the cheerleaders ditsy exhaustion between cheers.
Accelerometer, Vibration & Sound:
The game is full of your attacker’s grunts, your defender’s cheers, the crowd’s chants, underlined by a fitting background score. Of course you can opt to kill the sound in the settings menu.