Defending Everything But Your Time

November 29, 2007 10:53 PM

Rails of War is a terrific flash game, where you equip a train with ever-increasing combinations of weapons and guide it through various missions. It is a representative of the growing number of Defense-style flash strategy games started by Tower Defense and friends, which we discussed before. Now you can try Age of War, where you try to destroy an opponents base through five distinct eras; Invasion Tactical Defense where you must manage a nuclear missile plant and its anti-aircraft defenses; the inevitable and previously mentioned zombie defense games; StarCraft FA5, where you are the Zerg defending your base; and the lovely and abstract Red. These is a particularly addictive class of games, so be warned...
posted by blahblahblah (19 comments total)

I was just playing Age of War before loading this up. I can't get past the second stage on impossible. I'll have to check out the rest of these.
posted by betaray at 11:04 PM on November 29, 2007

Also my ability to defend my grammar seems to have left me as the many errors in the FPP indicate. If any admin wants to fix any of these issues, so that I don't get too mocked by the Language Cabal, I would appreciate it.
posted by blahblahblah at 11:39 PM on November 29, 2007

This greatly appeals to my love of trains and stuff that blows up.
posted by Mister Cheese at 12:56 AM on November 30, 2007

It also appeals to my love of secret train conspiracies. I will pretend that I am leaving Mulder in the middle of no where on a secret train car.

Also: I need a faster computerlator.
posted by Mister Cheese at 1:10 AM on November 30, 2007

Hate to be a pail of wet sand, but hasn't the expiration date on Tower Defense games arrived yet? It's starting to become the next Asteroids/Tetris/Shanghai/Breakout/Marble Madness/Puzzloop/Puzzle Bobble.
posted by JHarris at 1:13 AM on November 30, 2007

That is to say, a game that everyone copies, ad (infinit|nause)um.
posted by JHarris at 1:14 AM on November 30, 2007

(Eh, ignore me. I shouldn't complain. Obviously there's still some life in the genre. My apologies.)
posted by JHarris at 1:15 AM on November 30, 2007

Here are some I came across recently:
bloons tower defense 2
budapest defenders
posted by juv3nal at 1:19 AM on November 30, 2007

Well, I'm not sure Rails of War can be really considered what most people think of as a tower game. Sure, you make purchases for greater defensive power. But it's on a train that moves, and you get to direct the firing of the train. Which is a lot more interactive than any tower games I've played so far.

I mean, I guess it is technically a defense style game, but this game is far beyond what I expected. I expected somehow that a train had been shoehorned into the more specific tower defense area of the genera. Which is way too static for me.

I find it pretty exciting. The graphics style reminds me a little of Microsoft's Close Combat games.
posted by Mister Cheese at 1:31 AM on November 30, 2007

also storm winds
posted by juv3nal at 1:34 AM on November 30, 2007

Red is not really tower defense either, but that doesn't stop it from being awesome. 251 seconds!
posted by AndrewStephens at 3:23 AM on November 30, 2007

IMO best of breed is Vector Tower Defense
posted by poppo at 4:47 AM on November 30, 2007

Thanks .... just in time for finals.
posted by Arbac at 8:06 AM on November 30, 2007

I found The Last Stand to be very good. I also liked Army of Destruction, and if you haven't seen it, you should definitely try the Flash version of Portal.
posted by onalark at 8:34 AM on November 30, 2007

Awesome. That was much better than I expected.
posted by ryoshu at 10:23 AM on November 30, 2007

The best thing about this post is that the 'set it and forget it' amount of attention a towers game requires means that I can play all of these at the same time.

*remembers playing TD in starcraft scm maps
posted by tylermoody at 10:27 AM on November 30, 2007

I think onalark meant to link here for the Flash version of Portal.
posted by feloniousmonk at 2:31 PM on November 30, 2007

Thermo storm
posted by yoyo_nyc at 3:06 PM on November 30, 2007

color wars has a "you got yer ikaruga gameplay mechanic in my geometry wars knockoff" thing going on.
posted by juv3nal at 5:15 PM on November 30, 2007