Defense Grid: The Awakening is a unique spin on tower defense gameplay that will appeal to players of all skill levels. A horde of enemies is invading, and it's up to the player to stop them by strategically building fortification towers around their base. Beautiful environments, spectacular effects, and a dynamic, engaging soundtrack bring the world to life. The controls are intuitive and the gameplay is deep - the special attacks and properties of each tower work together to provide many ways to succeed.
In the far future, humanity struggles against a relentless enemy with weak tactics, but seemingly infinite troops. On one small planet, they were successful in driving the invaders off by using advanced technology to protect the power cores that the aliens were desperate to have. One of the generals in the war volunteered to have himself uploaded into the computer to assist the colony should the aliens ever return.
A thousand years later, the aliens are back. The player manages to make it to one of the ancient bases, and awakens the artificial intelligence construct of the general who was placed there in the previous war. The general understands how the bases operate, and can assist the player when needed, all while facing his own memories and losses from the previous engagement.
- Excellent Game Balance, Pace and Progression. Initially the path of the enemies is clearly defined, and the player chooses which towers to spend their resources on to optimally overcome the enemy forces. The player gains access to a wide variety of towers, each with a unique effect, and can divert the enemies by using the towers as obstacles. In the later levels, there are multiple power core sites to protect and entrance points to defend against, and how the player reroutes the enemy invasion can be critical to success.
- High Replayabiliity There are approximately 8 hours of gameplay in the main storyline, and many hours of play in challenge modes that give players unique starting conditions and objectives. Each game level is very replayable, and can be solved in many different ways, with increasing rewards for improved efficiency.
- Wide Variety of Enemies. Over the course of the game, players battle 15 different enemy types that become increasingly stronger, and employ a variety of strategies in an attempt to bypass the player’s defenses. Some enemies come in large groups, or are individually strong. As the levels progress, the enemies become tougher and more difficult to defeat.
- 20 Unique Levels. Defense Grid: The Awakening has 20 unique environments, each with a different placement of roads, tower build locations, and open areas to plan a strategy around. Each level encourages a different strategy, such as trying to find an optimal path to redirect enemies, making the best use of limited space, and breaking up individual enemy waves to avoid being overwhelmed, all while planning ahead for future waves.
- Numerous Tower Options and Upgrades. There are 10 different tower types with 3 levels of capability each. Each tower has unique tradeoffs that affect ideal placement, such as line-of-sight attack or ballistic trajectory fire; a large area of effect or damage over time; minimum and maximum ranges. Some towers improve other nearby towers, and some are ideal at specific locations, such as a rear guard tower that unleashes a devastating attack if it has time to charge up.
- Achievements: Successfully completing each level provides a bronze achievement award. Additional goals such as "complete the level with all power cores remaining" or "finish the level with more than 2,000 remaining resources" provide silver and gold accomplishments for a particular level. A novice player may be able to survive the onslaught, but only an experienced player will be able to get all of the gold achievements.