Cross-genre games on iOS take some unique elements and popular combinations of different hybrids such as arcade and puzzle to really make it all its own and stand out from competition. Wars Online: Defend Your Kingdom (Free, App Store Link) from Mobe Labb, attempts to do just that. In Wars Online, your goal is to defend your territory from warriors, arches, and wizards. You need to use a wide variety of offense against your enemy before they break into your castle.
Overview
Obviously, from what you can tell, Wars Online is a combination of tower defense, strategy, and 2D arcade gameplay all in one. The basic premise of the game is to defend your castle on a side-scrolling map while enemies make their offensive approach. To get to the next level, you must infiltrate their castle just as they are yours. You and your enemy have the same offensive weapons for the most part including archers, foot soldiers, plus the ammo you have for your cannon.
Just like other strategy and defense games, you purchase more offense by defeating enemies and getting through the levels. Of course, during the early levels there isn’t as much strategizing and making a plan of attack because you’re still learning some of the gameplay, but as you progress, the difficulty quickly picks up.
Gameplay
Wars Online has two different modes, single player and multiplayer, which is just a versus mode. There isn’t a lot of difference between the two modes. The single player mode contains 30 levels of gameplay. I’d say it’s a standard amount, although more thorough and in-depth strategy games contain a bit more gameplay. One issue I had with Wars Online was changing the name of my player on iPad. It works fine on an iPhone, but I’m assuming because of the keyboard on the iPad, it gets in the way of the ‘change’ button.
Even if you can’t change it, there’s no way of backing out of that screen, so you have to quit the app then start it up again. What you’re left with in multiplayer is “no name vs. no name”. This isn’t that much of a deal as it doesn’t affect the gameplay, but they encourage you to choose a name, yet you’re not able to do just that.
Graphics
The graphics and presentation are more cartoon-styled, which give it more of a feel of an arcade game. The UI is laid out nicely so it’s easy to find all the characters to choose from and easily upgrade your arsenal. There aren’t menus you have to search through unlike some other strategy games where you’re upgrading weapons, so there isn’t really anything that interrupts the gameplay at all. As you progress through the game, there is a tutorial for every new character and element so you can easily pickup on everything early on.
Overall
The developers really put a lot of focus on multiplayer in Wars Online and it shows right from the start. Connecting to the network and finding an opponent is really simple. It takes not more than a few seconds. Wars Online offers in-app-purchases to upgrade your army. IAPs in the game aren’t noticeable. You can play through the game just fine without them.
I like that there wasn’t a window that kept showing up after every level to buy through IAP, so you don’t feel forced into buying anything. Furthermore, all of your stats including coins, units, or other upgrades can easily be transferred within each mode. Wars Online is a great free tower defense game with so much to offer in terms of gameplay, there is plenty of replay value within the game.
Price: Free, App Store Link
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