By Brad Russell
Chances are you've played a tower-based defense game. In Spires, you set up magical towers, magically, that use magic to kill hordes of enemies. Why do I stress the magic of this game? Because that is the only thing different from other tower games.
The setting is a typical swords and sorcery world with the obligatory nave apprentice and the old wizard with the white beard. Your enemies are the usual bandits, goblins, and undead. They make the shortest route to whatever you are defending and its up to you to place spires around not blocking that path to kill as many as you can. To lessen the difficulty, you can let a few reach your gates and they will dissipate after getting in a few hits. The balance is that you want to kill as many as you can to increase your score.
You have a story and challenge mode, both of which share the same few maps, unfortunately. But both modes are fun and no walk in the park. Your performances are scored against how many enemies you kill. The enemies, spires, and settings are varied enough that the game doesn't get old fast, and you will be at least motivated enough to fully play through both modes. And though the graphics are not as sharp as possible, the game looks pretty when the spires are blasting away (or at least from the perspective of seeing things from the sky). A fast-forward button would be nice.
Few notes that must be mentioned. This game did not work for my iPad as of the time of review could just be my problem so read the updates. This game made my iPhone get warm in the back, so I would not advise playing for hours on end for anything in general, but especially here. This review is only for Episode 1 because as is the case with most iPhone games, a free update will add more content. Episode 2 is supposedly coming soon, so there is future content to be added to this game.
Final Rating: 84%
