On Trial: Widget TD

Colt: 8
Boy this is fun. Tower Defense with some rad inclusions, like a user controlled camera and first-person mode. Even though a single tower, and a player with steady aim, can handle the first few waves solo, when the difficulty ramps up FP is a lifesaver. Awesome animation, inventive towers, great sound effects, a staggering number of user-made and downloadable content; Widget exceeded my first thought of another entry in a tired genre. Woohoo.

Ben: 7
Widget TD is a standard tower defense game, save for one brilliant innovation: any of the units placed on the map can be commandeered and completely controlled by the player, often giving the unit augmented abilities. The enemies and units are pretty standard in their variety (the enemies have different speeds and HP, the units have different ranges and a couple of debuffs), but the unit-piloting hook is game-changing, and a lot of extra innovation is necessary. Both the visuals and the audio are completely unimpressive, though.

Peter: 7
WidgetTD is a simple tower defense game with one map that’s playable in the demo. Like any other tower defense game you build and upgrade defensive structures and hope they’re enough to keep wave after wave of attackers under control. The only mechanic WidgetTD adds to the mix is the ability to take control of any one tower. This brings up a first person cockpit view, and you can aim for the enemies you want. For some towers, this isn’t much use, but from the cockpit, your basic gun tower can hit anything on the map. The difficulty seems a bit out of whack though; creeps’ hit points ramp up far faster than you can upgrade your towers. Otherwise it’s a strong entry for the genre.

Andrew: 6
WidgetTD is a surprisingly difficult tower defense game that in most ways blends into the gigantic pack of me-too tower defense games that have flooded the market in the past few years. However, Widget stands out by allowing you to get into the turrets and fire them manually. While the strategic benefit of doing this is debatable, this polygonal strategy game earns points for originality, and yet loses points for unoriginality. One innovation is not enough when you’re competing in a genre of games so incredibly identical. It’s certainly not bad, but this is mostly stuff you’ve already seen before.