Lair Defense: Android Apps Written Review
Here at Android Apps Review we have a confession. We’re really big fans of tower defense games. So we were stoked when it was time to do an Android app review of Lair Defense, a tower defense app where the tables are turned and gameplay is extensive.
Gameplay
Reviewed by Valerie Lauer
The Lair Defense app description tries to make a big deal of calling you The ONE and putting a storyline to the app, but, honestly, this game is straight tower defense, plain and simple. In an interesting twist, you play the dragon, defending a clutch of dragon eggs from greedy humans. It’s nice to see the dragon take the offensive for once, and see humans vilified.
There are six different board scenes in the game, and each scene has eight levels that get progressively difficult as you go along. You’ll use three main types of dragons to build your defense, ice, fire and poison. Each dragon can be upgraded during the game and there are two different mana-fueld attacks you can use to further thwart the enemy. The game has an extensive upgrade system, so if you’re the kind of player that simply must complete games entirely, you’re going to be at it for a while.
The evil king will toss all sorts of rabble at your carefully placed defenses, from armless peasants (yeah, they’re pretty easy to take out) to spell wielding mages and slippery thieves. There’s a pretty wide variety of enemies, and the waves are broken up differently each level, so even though you spend eight levels at the same location the game is relatively diverse.
Several user reviews complain that it’s difficult to raise money in the app for upgrades, and it’s kind of true. Sometimes you have to do two levels to afford an upgrade. We don’t think that’s a particularly bad thing, and consider it a draw to the app since it fires our resolve to rock at the game.
Layout & Design
Lair Defense
Lair Defense has straightforward two-dimensional cartoon style graphics with a bit of a grungy, fantasy edge. The graphics are appropriate for all ages, as far as we noticed, and are pretty detailed. On a small Android phone screen they are almost too intricately detailed, it’s hard to make out some of the work that devs obviously put some time into perfecting.
Game controls are minimal, and navigating the app is extremely simple. We definitely approve of the game’s map style design and breakdown of levels to keep it visually interesting.
Overall Value
In the grand tradition of so many awesome Android apps, Lair Defense is entirely free to download and play. Sure, you might be tempted to buy some credits to make the game go faster, but you don’t have to do that to enjoy this app. We think it’s an great tower defense title, and our only complaint is that we wish for a little bit more diversity in the location levels, so that we didn’t have to fight on the same board eight levels in a row.
Go get Lair Defense, and don’t worry about the slightly pesky advertisements. This app is worth putting up with them.
Lair Defense
Android Apps Review Details: Lair Defense Android app is free. This app requires Android 1.6 and up. You may download Lair Defense from the Android Market.
