Attention! Men I've got some bad news for the sorry lot of you! Those damned beavers are trying to take the southern front again so we're going to have to do something about it! Now you're going to get your sorry robotic behinds out there and turn those little critters into smoldering scrap heaps! Do I make myself clear?
Robocalypse: Beaver Defense is an upcoming title for WiiWare by Vogster Entertainment that is probably one of the more humerous titles on this service. This is a fair accomplishment considering that the game is a fairly basic tower defense game. You have a wide open area with openings the enemies can come at you through and it's up to you to create towers to help stave off the assaults of these buck toothed menaces.
The towers come in four flavors each with its own uses. Each of these can be upgraded for either power or range up to three times to increase its effectiveness. If you're clever you can even build the towers in such a way as to funnel the enemies to move in particular ways that allow you to take the most potshots on them. There is also a mobile tower in the form of your Hero, essentially a walking tower. These powerful troops come in a variety of classes each with its own strong and weak points. Allied soldiers also move around the field each with a variety of roles that help you stave off the little blighters.
If the whole idea of using robotic soldiers and gigantic towers to defend against armies of enhanced beavers sounds too wacky to be true so should talking yellow sponges. The game was indeed penned by writers who worked on Spongbob Squarepants, most notably some of the Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy episodes.
A variety of enemy soldiers will attack your base each with their own methods of attack. Some will shoot at the base while others will turn into bombs to blow away pieces of the base. The real interesting part of the enemy hordes is the Hero enemies. Each of these has their own AI that determines how they will attack the base. Some will attempt to just steamroll all of your soldiers while others will go after your towers before going after the base.
Online only competitive multiplayer has already been announced. There are a few different modes that will allow you to compete against each other on the same map. Things like last man standing have already been mentioned with you being able to see how the other person is doing while you desperately fend off your own trouble. Generally it seems that they're aiming for simple but fun and functional multiplayer.
Beaver Defense is a fun little game that seems like it's simple enough for the younger gamers but with enough potential depth that more advanced gamers will be able to appreciate. It seemed to be surprisingly popular with the E3 crowd; someone was on it nearly every time we walked past it and they definitely seemed to be enjoying themselves. If you can appreciate pop culture references and sometimes zany humor mingling with your tower defense then this is a game you will definitely enjoy.