OTTTD: Over The Top Tower Defense

Genre: Tower Defense

Players: 1

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Review:

OTTTD is, like the name says, a Tower Defense game, and I suppose if there’s something “over the top” about it, it’s the high level of satire the game brings to the genre, with a corporation-shilling, military-glorifying, humanity-dismissing attitude that seems like it could have come straight out of Paul Verhoeven films like Starship Troopers and Robocop.

This satire does a fantastic job of bringing much-needed humor to a genre that can often seem a bit stiff and flavorless in its presentation, although at times the satire here reaches for low-hanging fruit, such as one of the game’s units being a straight-up Schwarzenegger parody whose lines are ripped straight from Arnie’s films.

Ah, speaking of the game’s units, that’s one of the unique things this game brings to the gameplay of the genre. While players can install and upgrade the genre’s standard towers directly, in addition they have multiple specialty units that level up, have skill trees, and can be moved independently around the map to support these towers. These are units like a mechanic to keep nearby towers repaired from damage, and a soldier to add extra firepower. In a way, these units almost feel like mobile towers if that makes any sense, as they’ll attack enemies in range just like towers do, but they can be reassigned wherever the situation calls for.

Well, at least that’s the case in theory. In practice it’s a bit messier, as the units move fairly slowly, and instead of moving them directly, you select them and tell them where to go, as you would in an Real-Time Strategy game… however, the interface is unfortunately a bit clunky, which can result in you trying to reassign a unit to a spot close to a tower, but instead select the tower, requiring you to have to re-select the unit and try again. This was such a frequent frustration that ultimately I found myself deciding on optimal spots for each of my units and just leaving them there while I focus on other things, largely defeating the purpose of their mobility.

Another problem comes about due to the game’s graphics. While the game looks decent enough, the lack of the ability to change perspective means that it’s easy for friendly and enemy units to be hidden behind buildings, making it difficult to select them. What’s more, when enemies are killed, they leave behind corpses and guts all over the battlefield, which in theory is a nice touch, but in practice makes everything look far too busy and makes it harder to assess the battlefield at a glance.

It’s a shame that these elements hamper the gameplay, because a lot of the ideas in OTTTD are really good. I think the satire in the game is fantastic and keeps things interesting, and having hero units you can level up and move around the map is a great addition to the genre, but the flaws in the game’s interface and visual presentation make the game frustrating, and make it hard to fully appreciate the game’s better qualities. Fans of the genre still might want to give this game a look, though.

tl;dr – OTTTD is a Tower Defense game with a satirical presentation straight out of Starship Troopers, and hero units you can level up and move around the map is a great addition to the genre. Unfortunately, the game suffers from interface and presentation problems that make it far more frustrating to play than it should be. It’s still worth a look for fans of the genre, though.

Grade: C+

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