I bought
Defense Grid: The Awakening from Xbox Live Arcade yesterday and it's awesome!
I had never played a "tower defense" game until this one and within minutes of playing it I was completely hooked.
Basically, you reactivate a centuries old fully intelligent AI computer program and use it to activate defense towers around the level. The AI has the voice of an old British man and it actually blends well with the game.
A huge army of aliens attack and it's up to you to use your available resources to build towers to stop the aliens from stealing your power cores. The aliens march in through your gauntlet of towers. If they make it through, they'll steal a power core or two and try to exit the level with it.
When all the power cores have been stolen, your entire defense grid shuts down and it's game over.
Check out the official trailer:
Gameplay Video:
Maps like this really require some creative thinking to beat...
You can zoom in on the action, but the person who posted this video doesn't zoom in much.
There are several different towers you can build and they're all indestructible.
There are machine gun towers, Inferno towers that spew flame, laser towers, meteor towers that launch flaming projectiles like a mortar, missle towers, and even a temporal tower that emits a pulse of energy that slows the aliens down for a few seconds.
All of the towers are upgradeable. They start at Green, the weakest level. Then you can spend additional resources to upgrade them. The next levels are amber and then to red level, where they are extremely lethal.
The variety of towers are great and everything depends on how well you place them.
Do you upgrade that flame tower over there? Or do you build a new tower down there?
The choices you make have a huge impact on the outcome.
The aliens come at you piecemeal at first, but then they enter your base in strength. In later levels, even the strongest towers you've built can't keep up with the sheer number of aliens coming to get your precious power cores.
The music is intense and the graphics are excellent.
This is hands down the best deal I've ever seen on Xbox Live Arcade.
I'm giving this game 4 stars out of 4.
Play this game and you'll be hooked. I promise!