Mega Tower Assault

Do people still use the word ‘mega’ in a serious way any more?

It’s one of those words, like ‘awesome’ and ‘wicked’, that seems to have been filed in the ‘I’m being ironic, of course’ cabinet over the years.

Gameloft's Mega Tower Assault isn't using it in that knowing-wink sort of way, though. When Gameloft says 'mega', it means it.

Mega Tower Assault takes the form of a 15 wave assault on your (hopefully) fortified position. Using a variety of towers, the aim is to filter the opponents through a narrow ‘corridor of death’, with the desired conclusion being that they all fall over or explode before reaching the HQ.

Each level is broken down into a number of waves, each lasting a few minutes. You have the option of speeding up a particularly easy wave should you desire.

It’s worth avoiding that ‘fast forward’ button, though, as you’ll miss the excellent graphics and animation.

Watching the enemy grunts get gunned down by an upgraded chaingun tower is surprisingly satisfying, even after you've watched it a few hundred times.

Enemy units come in a fairly traditional tower defence flavour. The game starts with weak ground troops and nippy buggies before throwing airplanes, tanks, and even invisible machines your way.

Each unit has its own counter building, and while every damage-dealing turret can hurt things that walk into its firing range, only the right combination of constructions can stop the dreaded foe from reaching your HQ.

Mega Tower Assault is not quite as clear as some of its competitors when it comes to how effective the next upgrade (of a possible three) to a building is, due to the reliance on bars rather than numbers in the information screen.

On the other hand, the wider variety of buildings on offer encourages experimentation and grants extra tactical freedom as to how to approach each level.

Splitting the troops

Whereas the first level opens with a fairly standard beach assault with one possible entrance, later stages throw up all manners of intriguing obstacles to overcome, like movable weapon platforms and multiple entry points.

All twelve stages are split into three different levels. Add to this the three difficulty settings, which have a significant impact on the composition of the various waves you’ll face, and you end up with a lot of assaults to be defending against.

Throw in separate high score charts for each stage and you have a tower defence title that is, indeed, mega.