GamesRelay

Name: Fieldrunners

Fieldrunners is a Tower Defence game originally developed by Subatomic Studios LLC as a game for the iPhone where it has proved to be a very successful game, they have now taken their game and brought it to the PlayStation Portable in the form of a PSP Mini game which were recently made available on the PlayStation Network.

Just in case you don't know, Tower Defence games have you protecting your territory from would be raiders by planting towers, these towers are normally laden with heavy artillery of some kind and attack the enemy as they come into range. The enemies will have one or more starting points with the ambition of getting to the other side of the play area without being killed; it's your job to arrange the towers in such a way that they never make it to their goal. The enemies will attack in waves, some made up of light artillery, others made up of vehicles and both come in varying numbers starting at just a few, then all of a sudden in a mass wave which sees them trying to rush forwards.

The game includes 5 maps for you to play, some are locked until you reach the 50th wave of attackers so the second map won't become available till you've proven your worth on the first map and so on, there's also three game modes available; Classic, Extended and Endless so there is plenty for you to go at.

Starting in the Classic mode, you'll have four options available to you, the Gatling, Goo, Missile and Tesla towers, each will cost you an increasing amount of dollars to place one down. There is also the option to upgrade each of the towers a maximum of three times, you won't have to fork out the same amount again to improve the tower, just a smaller cost, subsequently it's power and range will increase with each upgrade. Each time one of your towers kills an opponent you'll be rewarded with money back starting at $1 and working it's way up depending on the type of enemy stopped. The game eases you in and at first will seem easy, but the pace soon picks up and you'll be frantically laying down your defences as the enemies get closer and closer to their goal, should 20 of them make their way across the arena then it'll be game over and you'll have to start again with a new strategy. At first the enemies will attack from just the one direction, but different maps bring with it new challenges in that they will attack from each direction so your defences will have to be more spread out. Should you manage to stop 100 waves of enemies then you'll have won the fight. The enemies range from soldiers through to tanks and other military vehicles, after 10 rounds a much harder enemy will try to make its way across the field; these are much harder to kill than the normal enemies and will test your defences to the max.

The other two game modes bring a little bit more to the same arenas; the Extended mode sees two more defence types introduced, the Flame and Mortar towers and the Endless mode is, well, endless, with no cap being brought in on the number of waves you must stop, essentially a survival mode for the game.

The graphics on the game are good for what they are; each tower is drawn well so you can identify it straight away and the animation on the enemies as they run across the maps are pretty well defined. The maps themselves are again drawn well with enough variation between the differing level styles so you don't get bored of looking at it. The music on the game is military in fashion and keeps the game moving along nicely without too much repetition, likewise the sound effects are spot on for the game.

Overall this game offers great value for money, it's not a game you're going to be able to sit and finish in one sitting and it'll have you coming back for more as you plan new strategies to defend your turf. One feature I thought was really good about this was that you can save your progress at any time, so if you're sat on the train and you arrive at your destination you can just pause the game and return to it at the same moment you left. This is a great touch to the game as so many times you can lose your progress on a portable system such as the PSP.

If you like Tower Defence games then you're going to like this, it does its job and it does it well, overall a fine gaming experience and one other developers should be eyeing before creating their own PSP Mini games.