Review: ARDefender - Tower Defense In Real Life
by Staff Writer
October 1, 2010
Overview & Features
Now you can play some tower defense in your surroundings with ARDefender. It's an augmented reality app that puts a tower in the current scope of your idevice camera, and you defend it for as long as you can. You simply print out the form from the developer's website, and place it anywhere, and can start playing your game on top of the real world.
The Good
The game is truly ground breaking as you play some tower defense on top of the real world you live in. You can play in the table, on the floor, in the grass, and even on top of your dog. It's great seeing the enemies move across your table, and then see the explosions.
It's super simple to set up with a simple print out, and then pointing your iDevice camera at the print out. Then e tower appears, and the enemies start coming at it. You tilt to aim, and then tap to fire against multiple types of enemies. The game truly has a wow factor that not many can replicate.
The Bad
The game feels more like a tech demo than an actual game. Once you get over the awe factor there really isn't much else to do with the app. You start shooting down enemies, but there is no score component. When you restart a game you face the same exact waves with no variability. The game is rather bland in the graphics and sound department as well.
While playing, if you move your iDevice the tower becomes a little glitchy. if you change position significantly it sometimes can't find the print out to create the tower, and the screen will become blank with enemies still attacking. The tilt to aim controls aren't the smoothest in the App Store, and you can fire upon an enemy multiple times without the game registering it.
The Verdict
If anything, ARDefender is definitely neat, and supplies the wow factor. It's great defending your tower on your everyday items, and the game is easy to set up and control. Sadly there isn't much to the game even lacking a basic scoring system leaving it feeling like a tech demo.
ARDefender should be free as the wow factor wears off quickly, and there really isn't anything else to do with the app. If you really want something to show off to your friends this is worth picking up, but hopefully this tech demo can be expanded upon by this developer or improved by others.
***The developers are working hard on future updates. They are planning to support this title through next year, and the 1.1 update is scheduled to be submitted next Friday.
