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Steam tells me that I've spent more time with Defense Grid than with any other game it tracks. It looks like they are planning a sequel and using Kickstarter to fund it. I hope they reach their (ambitious) goal.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hiddenpath/defense-grid-2

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The levels get better as you go along, giving you more situations in which you have freedom to choose your approach rather than just figuring out the "right" answer (as in the first few levels).

There unfortunately comes a point where they can no longer throw anything at you that you can't handle pretty easily (with the exception of a few of the advanced challenge maps). But fortunately this point arrived for me after I finished the basic game. (I noticed it only as I breezed through the expansions.) One of my favorite challenges was the last level of the basic game before I had worked out a strategy for it.

I'm very curious to see what they do with the sequel. This is just one of those games that's more or less perfect within the scope of what they were trying to to create.

My two favorite tower defense games of those I've tried remain this one and Immortal Defense. Followed by Plants vs. Zombies. (Is that something that I should only begrudgingly admit?) I tried PixelJunk Monsters recently, but found it boring (which surprised me, as I like their other games a lot).

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Over the weekend, I finally got around to playing through the "Containment" levels that they released in connection with the aforementioned Kickstarter. This time, they seemed to focus more on the story and graphics than on presenting unique tactical situations (unlike the Portal-themed levels, which actually were something new).

I think my favorite level types are the ones where you have to figure out how to thoroughly "maze" the enemies, making them pass your most dangerous spots as many times as possible. That's one thing the expansions do more of. Sometimes it feels as if there's basically one right way to do it, but other times you get to be a little more creative (as much as creativity is possible in such a tightly-structured game in such a tightly-structure genre).

Defense Grid is definitely one my all-time favorite video games. It and Audiosurf are two that I keep finding myself going back to every so often. The former because they release new maps and modes, and the latter because I get new music or need to dethrone someone who has topped my sometimes-years-old high score on a song (not that I'm an expert at the game or anything--these are usually fairly obscure songs).

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This game is out now. So far, it looks more like the original than like the concept art above. I'm not really sure how good the game looks at high settings because my video card is not good enough to use them.

The scoring is different. Resources and points are now tracked separately, with resources increasing at a standard rate and all bonuses going toward score.

I was afraid the game would be too easy because I've played the original so much, but I'm finding the higher difficulty levels a challenge. I'm about halfway through the game, and so far I have not seen much done with the shifting platforms found in the demo a while back, or with other new mechanics. Maybe that will change in later stages. Some differences:

• Command towers are replaces by "boost" towers, which you can stack other towers on to give them bonuses (and height).
  
• You earn permanent upgrades to the various towers, and can choose one per tower (after you acquire more than one) for each stage.
  
• The orbital laser now has your choice of several effects, such as temporarily supercharging towers, slowing down all enemies, etc. You choose one effect per stage.

There are also multi-player cooperative and competitive modes this time. I haven't tried either yet. If anyone around here gets the game at some point and wants to try them, let me know.

There's also some sort of marketplace of user-created levels. I'm not sure what will come of that. I suppose I will have to try the editor at some point. (Oh, there's also an editor.)

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