Bad Dinos

If it wasn't for one clever idea, Insomniac's dinosaur defence game Bad Dinos could be written off as a Kingdom Rush clone

It's yet another tower defence game, after all, with predetermined slots to plop down turrets, a handful of godlike powers on cooldown timers, and the usual stats to upgrade.

But there is, thankfully, a twist. Injured enemy dinosaurs can be captured in a big net, and saved in captivity. Then, when the time is right, you can unleash your friendly dinosaur army on the opposition.

It adds a slim, but welcome strata of strategy to the whole thing as you decide which prehistoric beasties to snag, and figure out when's the best time to let them loose.

It's quite different to play a game like this, where the goal isn't always to annihilate every enemy. The need to keep some alive so you can add them to your arsenal can be quite a thrill.

Especially when you lay down a string of decoy cavemen to redirect a convoy of dinosaurs, or unleash a T-rex milliseconds before a pack of raptors were about to ravage your base.

A less revelatory feature is the way the map changes over time - lava fields cool into dino highways and landmasses drift together.

You'll need to update your strategy, helping to alleviate the boredom that can sink in by minute 10 of a tower defence campaign

You've also got the cute Hanna Barbera style art and the cartoon interstitials between battles. They're pretty good.

Bad Dinos does just enough to make tower defence feel fresh again. It's not a complete reinvention of the genre, and it still suffers some of the same pitfalls as other games of this style, but those bored of TD games should give it a look.