Game Reviews

Tiny Defense

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Tiny Defense
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| Tiny Defense

Just when you thought it wasn’t possible for iPhone games to become any more derivative, some bright spark has cooked up the idea of fusing the words ‘Tiny’ (made famous by Tiny Wings) and ‘Defense’ (no doubt inspired by the flood of tower defence clones currently clogging up the App Store) to create what we assume is intended to be the ultimate moniker.

The fact that the game it's attached to is merely decent rather than groundbreaking is probably a secondary consideration.

Tiny Defense borrows so many ideas from existing titles that it’s unsurprising that it has precious few original concepts of its own.

Do the robot

There’s a storyline in there somewhere about the tyrannical suppression of friendly robots by unfriendly ones, but to be honest it has little bearing on your overall enjoyment.

The ultimate aim of each stage is to prevent enemy robots from reaching the right-hand side of the field. To do this, you have construct robots that have been specially designed with a specific purpose in mind.

Gunner robots fire straight ahead and are the mainstay of your android army. Another gunner type fires up into the sky, and is built to deal with airborne enemies.

Everyone has a role

You’ve also got flying robots, shield-bearing robots, and even robots that can fire ice bullets which hinder the progress of your opponent’s forces.

Creating any of these wonderful automata requires green gems, which are produced by Fusor Bots. These chaps have no offensive capabilities whatsoever, and are manufactured purely to give you the resource to build other units.

As you strike a path through the game’s many stages you gain access to different unit types, as well as the ability to purchase upgrades and special powers. As your proficiency increases, so too does the power and cunning of the enemy.

Seen it all before

All of which will be tiresomely familiar to anyone who has played this type of game in the past. It’s not that Tiny Defense is especially poor – in fact, it’s a occasionally enjoyable and even moderately addictive at times.

The issue is that there are better examples of the genre out there right now, and even if you’ve played titles like Plants vs Zombies to death there’s nothing on show in Tiny Defense that is going to make you sit up and take notice.

If you absolutely must play another game of this type then you could do a lot worse than download this cute but ultimately uninspired game. Otherwise, there are better alternatives available.

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Tiny Defense

It’s not a bad game by any means, but Tiny Defense suffers from a crippling lack of originality, and comes across as a merely passable amalgamation of many other superior titles
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Damien  McFerran
Damien McFerran
Damien's mum hoped he would grow out of playing silly video games and gain respectable employment. Perhaps become a teacher or a scientist, that kind of thing. Needless to say she now weeps openly whenever anyone asks how her son's getting on these days.