Metalix

I've played many defense games and Metalix is absolutely unique among them in not just one but many ways. The Japanese have a unique style in any artistic endeavor and it is really expressed in this game. Nothing about Metalix is mediocre, the graphics are superb, the sound effects are superb, and the game play is superb.

This is one of two Tower Defense games I took a serious interest in and could not beat in a couple of hours, Elite Conquest being the other. I have played Conquest all the way through, but it took several days. I have not yet been able to complete Metalix.


Wave one starts out easy; only a handful of weak creeps and enough gold to buy several towers. I usually start with two canon's and a laser tower. Notice the unique metallic graphics, the playing field is metallic, the creeps are metallic, and the turrets are mostly metallic. The menus and status board are translucent. And the graphics give a three dimensional appearance that adds to the realism of the animation.

There are only three basic types of turrets in Metalix. The least expensive are cannon's which act much like your basic turret in other games. The next type is a laser turret and these seem to be the most damaging but damage only one creep at a time. The last and most expensive is the fire turret which damages multiple creeps but has a slow reload.


In wave two you'll see that the path has totally changed. That is one of the unique aspects of this games play. Each wave takes a new path.

Another unique characteristic is that each turret can move. You program the moves between waves and it is also possible to do so during waves. When the paths change, it is possible that turrets may end up on a path. If the creeps reach a turret on their path before the turret is moved off the path, they will destroy the turret and you've lost your defensive investment.


You'll notice something new in wave 3, the turrets are taller. This means I've upgraded the towers range. One aspect of this game that is unique is that you can upgrade the towers range, power, quantity (which really means firing rate), and moving ability, all separately, giving a really large number of potential turret characteristics from a limited number of turret types. Different types of upgrades affect the physical appearance of the turrets differently.


I've upgraded a laser and added another cannon in this round. Note the red jewel at the end of the path; ordinary creeps inflict damage if they reach it and when totally destroyed, the game is over. Bosses destroy it in one hit; so the first boss to get through ends the game. The first boss happens on level ten, and currently that's where my game ends.


By level 7 things get crazy; the animation of the creeps is really wild; you'll need to play the game to experience that. By this level you are usually getting two types of creeps simultaneously, the things that look like the back end of a shark, and a hopping creep that is really difficult to kill.


That ball with the red lights is the first boss creep. When he gets through it's game over. I have not succeeded in getting past him yet. The best I've been able to do is about 80% kill no matter what combination of towers and upgrades I get even when I get a very lucky path that brings him past the same towers multiple times.

Now as I've stated, the turrets can move in this game. I think this is probably key to winning level 10, moving your turrets dynamically during that level to inflict sufficient damage, but so far I haven't been able to do this in a sufficiently coordinated way.

You give it a try! Click on the button at the top of this post or the link. If you manage to get past level ten share with us how you did it. I guarantee you'll find this quite a different experience from other defense games you may have played.

Defense-Games.Com

I've become so enamored with the Tower Defense genre of games that I've created a website dedicated to them, "defense-games.com". Currently, I have 150 games on the site but I am still adding to it.

I've designed the site for minimum clutter and maximum game space; you'll find images of each game in a matrix that re-sizes with your browser, with the games in alphabetical order. If you mouse over the image, the game name will appear.

The main page itself re-sizes to any browser size, but because flash applications will not dynamically re-size the way static content will, I've opted for a minimum screen dimension of 1024x768.

The majority of games, where the author allowed; are hosted locally so they will load quickly and reliably, but there are a handful where the game was not allowed to execute off of the authors site, where it loads from a remote site and may not be as quick or reliable.

The majority of the games are flash but a handful are java, and there may be some that are silver-light based if I can ever get that to work for me. There are some truly unique games there so check it out, and if you find it worthwhile, I really would appreciate a link from your website or a post on relevant forums to help spread the word.

I have tested defense-games.com on Firefox 3, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari. For the most part it works properly on all of these browsers. Here is an image of the main screen (sorry for the small glitch at the bottom, I actually had to stitch together two images if the browser because it would not fit in one window without scrolling):


If you know of any that are not included there yet, please let me know. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy!