:) :} :] :| :[ :{ :( from happy to said
:D wootage i got up to wave 30 from putting up 4 maxed saws in front and one laser near them.
on wave 30 i died though cause i sold the laser and tryed to put up more saws stupid me :(
Reviews for "Z-Wars"
Well..
I am going to have to agree with the prevailing oppinion on this one. I don't really see anything special about this tower defense Game. In other words I don't see that it adds anything of particular interest to the genera.
Pros:
Everything seemed to function well. I liked the auto adjust graphics option. I always like the option to turn off music and sound. I like it even more when you can turn them off seperately. I did like the idea of the Gas gun, but given you are fighting tanks you might want to consider something other than poisoning. I do like 'pathing' TD games. I think that it does add a fun and interesting twist to the strategy you use Vs. in fixed path games.
Cons:
The enemies are redundant, all they do is change colors. and they all do the exact same thing (as far as I can tell). The payoff is not enough to maintain a good defence. Yes, there may be a few strategies that work well, however one shouldn't have to chance upon them Well, that is either the money doesn't arrive quick enough, or that the enemy health starts increasing by too large of leaps. Also the build window and other HUD elements are bulky and get in the way of building. When you end up later in the game without real breaks in the waves (one wave is still on screen when the other is comming) this makes it annoying and difficult to build on the fly. I also have to agree with someone who had earlier said that the upgrades kind of suck. The only weapon that really seemed to have a good upgrade was the saw, which unfortunately had a very limiting range, making it only good at the ends of hairpins. I also noticed that weapon tracking was an issue. Weapons would retrack rather than focus on an enemy until it was out of range, or firing on an enemy after it was destroyed. Also the missile tracking on the rockets really seemed to suck, I would have rockets fire at enemies only to watch the rocket just whiz by their position without seeming to turn in the slightest.
Suggestions:
Allow the option for the player to select targets. Along those lines if you allow grouping of allied turrets would be nice as well. So you could group upgrade (would only really work with more money).
Either a) lower upgrade costs b) provide more funds c) decrease the enemy upgrade rate or d) provide more upgrade for the money. A hint with upgrades with the exception of perhaps speed an upgrade should provide at least the equivilant extra damage for the cost. So if a gun costs 50 and your upgrade costs 50 it should do provide double the damage of the original gun, as well as some other benefits like range and perhaps speed. With the shock guns, you should not decrease speed, unless you are proportionally increasing damage and range to compensate. Due to the speed decrease (~18%) upgrading that gun makes it less effective than the prior version.
Add different enemies, even if you don't change their traits at least change the graphics.
Add boss levels, one of the things that helps other games get away with lower per unit rewards is that boss levels greatly supplement the income.
Add experience modifiers to the guns, this is something that is often not done well, but if you can do it and do it well it would be a big bonus to the game.
Confine your pop=up menus to a side or bottom fixed toolbar. This way they won't interfere with gameplay.
Shift is a more commonly used multi placement key than Ctrl. Keeping the key settings familiar make the game more fun. On those same lines (and perhaps the game had this and I just didn't see) hotkeys for functions like build and options menus adds to the ease and enjoyment of play as well.
In conclusion:
Weighing the pros and cons, and also knowing what this genera already has to offer (xenotactic for example) have me giving this game a (very generous IMHO) 5/10. I do think this is a good start, but there are alot of very good games on this line out there. You should try to think of an angle to make yours stand out, right now it really is just another TD.
twistedduck responds:
Thank you very much for putting so much time into the review - it is very helpful! As a little note - you can use SHIFT instead of CTRL, I just didn't say this in the instructions.
Sweet game, I have a few tips and a few questions
It's a good game.
First, tips for other players. The game isn't hard provided you use the correct strategy. Start with a saw near the entrance, and upgrade it until it does 2 damage (don't get the last upgrade). Build walls around the saw so that the enemies have to go all the way around it on both sides. Then build a second saw, and again upgrade it until it does 2 damage and add walls. Then, build a charge coil near the exit, and upgrade it as soon as possible. As far as I can tell, looking at the numbers, the upgraded charge coil is by far the best unit in the game in terms of damage per second. Add walls to make a maze so that the tanks are on the field for the maximum amount of time before they get to the coil (it's pointless to add extra walls after that since the next wave will come). Then just keep building and upgrading more charge coils near the exit... I have 5 of them now, paused on level 38, and one of them has over 13,000 damage stored up on it.
Am I correct in thinking that the number of hits per second, is equal to the firing rate / 40? Because the first level laser seems a lot weaker than I calculate it should be, by that. Or do units have some kind of armor against low damage? Also, I noticed that when I put it on 3x speed, units got through, and then the next wave I set it back to normal without building anything extra and all units were stopped. Unless the next wave was easier than the previous one, I think that 3x speed decreases the relative damage your units do.
um...
the walkthough says theres an emp, but there isn't on the build menu... que?
twistedduck responds:
The walkthrough also says that the EMP was abandonned. I was going to have an EMP but I decided against it.
Good try
The problem with this game is a very common one among tower defense games; there isn't enough cash flow. I liked it but the difficulty just jumps dramaticaly at about the 13th wave. I never used the walls because they were too expensive, I had to keep upgrading my turrets so I could keep up with the enemy. I never could get past the 18th wave, my guns weren't fast enough and my saw blades weren't powerful enough.
I play defense games with 2 goals in mind.
1) Beating the game
2) Trying to max out upgrades for mass destruction.
I could do neither of them. I have to say even though this is one of the most overused themes, I liked it. I prefer games with tanks and realistic war machines over games with hot dog shooting turrets and other random crap like that. For that, I give you a 4.