A wide range of people enjoy tower defense games due to their ubiquity; you might find a co-worker, friend, or relative that has never touched a controller or used their PC for anything other than Office and Facebook, yet they might play Desktop Tower Defense constantly. It is this for this type of person that this article is intended. We will take a look at some console and PC tower defense games, ranked roughly in order from the casual and very new-player friendly to the more intense, traditional gaming experiences. If you have an acquaintance who enjoys tower defense on her iPhone, try a few of these games, and you just might end up with a brand new co-op partner.
There's a very good chance that even the newest tower defense fan has played Plants Vs. Zombies. It is extremely popular, almost Angry Birds level, and is available for almost every platform known to gamerkind. And there's a good reason for this, since the stoic, adorable plants and hilarious, decidedly non-creepy zombies are quite fun just to look at. The more complex tower defense elements like mazing are absent, offering instead a smooth learning curve and a reasonable pace that is very forgiving to new players. The Xbox 360 version is definitive, with more features than any other version, including a two-player adventure mode as well as co-op specific maps. If you are going to play one tower defense game with an inexperienced player, Plants Vs. Zombies should be it.
The next logical step upward in complexity is the adorable Pixeljunk Monsters. The art style is as cute and inviting as Plants Vs. Zombies, if not more so. It is far more traditional than the previous game, though, but not so much that it would be frustrating for a new player, especially one playing in co-op with a more experienced gamer. One key tower defense skill, recognizing chokepoints and other advantageous positions for tower placement, is a big part of Pixeljunk Monsters. In the co-op mode, both players share research and upgrade gems, which is another nice touch. This is an excellent choice of tower defense game for the player who is almost, but not quite, ready to hit the more traditional games.
South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play!
At this point, we're assuming that the casual fan is ready for a bit more of a hands on approach, and the South Park tower defense game provides that in spades. Early levels include prebuilt mazes, like the one pictured above, but soon you and your co-op partner (and up to two others, which is fairly rare in such games) are tasked with building your own mazes. Maximizing efficiency by combining a good maze with the right blend of towers is a very cooperative experience. Be warned, though; the same iireverent humor that makes the TV show so popular is certainly present in the game. Not recommended for the younger set, but a nice step up for an older tower defense fan, particularly one familiar with the show.
This PSN gem has the appearance of a fairly standard tower defense game, but there's much more to it than that. Certainly, there are still towers, mazes, upgrades, and the like, but there are some key differences that add both complexity and, to the more hardcore fan, a sense of fulfillment. The biggest difference is the ability to actually fight back against the invading opponents by building factories that produce units for you. These various units can be used to attack your foes wherever needed, and this twist to the gameplay turns the tower defense genre on its ear. The only real drawbacks to Comet Crash are the rather bland graphics, which can often make things difficult to make sense of in the heat of battle. Still, it's certainly worth checking out.
Once your new casual co-op tower defender has made it this far, they aren't really a casual gamer anymore. Sanctum is one of the more challenging games on this list, due to the heavy reliance on first-person shooter skills, but it is, at its core, a stellar example of the genre. Though there are relatively few maps, there are a host of different options for creating your maze, choosing the right towers, and upgrading your own suite of weapons for maximum effectiveness. Those who enjoy the analytical nature of tower defense games, particularly in the area of spending resources, will find Sanctum a triumph. If you make it this far, congratulations; you are well and truly a "hardcore gamer" now, whatever that is.
Though this list is a fairly representative selection, there are dozens of other games out there that fit in at various places on the spectrum. Xbox Live Indie fans should consider Murky Horizons, a twin stick shooter/tower defense hybrid that I've covered before on Co-Op Casual Friday, as well as Sol Survivor. Recent XBLA release Trenched is another game that will interest tower defense fans. Coming soon, we can look forward to Toy Soldiers: Cold War and Defenders of Ardania. It's a good time to be a gamer, and especially one who craves the thrill of placing towers in the best places in order to wipe out an invading army of bad guys. So good out there, gamers, and find other, casual tower defense players. Cultivate them with games like these, and you may bring a new co-op fan into the fold!