Review: Stickwars - An fun and cheap Castle Defense Game

[APPyhourreviews]

Stickwars - John E. Hartzog
Price: $0.99 [App Store]
Played On: iPhone 3G
Rating: 8.7/10
Discussion Thread: here (this is the main thread but the latest comments come in the update threads)


Stickwars is an awesome castle defense game for the extremely low price of $0.99! Its a lot of fun and much deeper than it first appears.

Gameplay: The goal of the game in Stickwars is to defend your castle. The majority of the time, you will be flinging stickmen into the air and letting them explode upon the ground. Fun stuff. Its classic castle defense at its best and it works well. In addition, you can buy upgrades to your caslt like fortifying the wall, a prison, a archer camp, a bomb camp, a repair camp, and a wizard camp. Once you buy the prison, you can put attackers into a wooden cell and they get captured and can be used to fend off future invaders. This is where the camps come in. The bomb camp allows you to make kamikaze bombers without the planes that can be sent out from the castle with a shake of the iDevice or a click of a button and then detonated with a repeat of one of those actions. The archer camp places archers on your wall, the repair camp places healing workmen on the wall, and the wizard camp gives you wizards. The wizards are pretty unique and add alot of variation to the gameplay. You can launch fireball, meteors, and instantly imprison people if you have enough mana and wizards. Its all fun but fighting the same stickfigures over and over again would get boring right? Thats why theres different kinds of attackers! Theres shielded-men, horse-men, siege engines, and dragons! They all add a twist to the classic formula and add to the fun! The gameplay is very well done and is the best part of the game.

Graphics: The graphics in this game are admittedly, not amazing. But you dont really need anything flashy in this genre. The stick figures and nicely made castle and background get the job done well. The special effects from the explosions and such are not to shabby either. The grapics could definitely be better, but for $0.99, they are definitely good enough.

Sound: I often feel like judging sound is a very subjective thing. In this case, I really like the sounds in the game. The music really adds an epic feel to the game and has a different song for each screen, whether it be the menu, shop, or battlefield. There are also sound effects that add to the experience and I didnt get annoyed by them which is always a plus! The sound is very nice and really makes the game better.

Controls: The controls in this game work very well. You throw the stick figures into the air with a flick of the finger and place them into the prison in the same way. Fireballs from the wizard are thrown by pulling back and releasing similar to a slingshot. And the very powerful meteor can be launched by a multitap. It all works well and I never found the game not recognizing my touches or misinterpreting them. What I wanted to happen, happened and at the right time. These are wonderful controls.

Replayability: The replayability in this game is very good as well. You can play the game over and over again and it never really feels old. You may have to take a break every now and then, but you can always come back later and enjoy some more castle defense. In addition, there are three difficulties so you can take it easy or play some intense Stickwars. Its a very fun game to play again and again and I find myself coming back to it often.

The bottom line is that this is a great game. Every aspect of the game is awesome except for the graphics, which dont take away from the experience. This app comes highly recommended for anyone and everyone, and for $0.99, its hard to go wrong. Plus the dev is an active updater and the game is constantly being improved. All great reasons to buy it. In short, you should go out and get this game!



Gameplay: 9/10

Graphics: 7/10

Sound: 8.5/10

Controls: 9/10

Replayability: 9/10

Overall: 8.7/10