Defense Zone HD

One thing is very clear when playing Defense Zone HD: there’s a near future war on and you’d better do something about it.

You have to use your finely honed tower defence skills to mow down wave after wave of persistent enemies, but what’s lacking is a context for the conflict.

With no story to give the action context, what you’re left with is a competently designed - often dramatic - wargame played out over different HD backdrops.

While there’s little originality to be found in Defense Zone HD - even the name sounds desperately formulaic - you can’t fault the developer’s understanding of the TD template and its intrinsically compulsive appeal.

For each of the ten stages, ranging from wartorn cityscapes to the surface of a volcano, you’re presented with clear tracks the enemy grunts and tanks will follow surrounded by open areas waiting to be filled with a selection of typically devastating weaponry.

Your arsenal is selected by dragging a weapon from its icon at the bottom of the screen and then placing it on one of the hex-covered areas that glow blue if there’s room for you to build.

From mini-guns to rocket launchers and more elaborate weapons like flamethrowers, which are unlocked with each new stage, there’s a fair degree of variety in how you decimate the increasingly tricky waves.

You can also prioritise each turret to aim at the nearest or strongest of foes, which is a fun diversion in Easy mode but a necessity if you ratchet the difficulty up to Normal or Hard.

It may lack the sparky freshness of more innovative tower defence titles like Plants vs Zombies and the genre-defying Anomaly Warzone Earth, but it’s hard to deny that Defense Zone HD is rewarding to play.

The graphics are also sharp, with a gritty militaristic vibe that feels a long way from the cartoony antics of Fieldrunners HD, and the weapons crack and rattle with a sometimes deafening sense of power.

Traditional TD warmongers will take to the action more than casual players, so perhaps a sequel with a story or more imaginative scenarios will make more of a bang on Google Play.