The burgeoning demand for Tower Defence games seems to know no bounds, and developers are trying every trick in their books to come up with some truly iPhone orientated slices of action. None more so than Super Squawk Software, who in their first game The Creeps have managed to squeeze in features that we've never before seen in a game of this genre. Let's take a look.
There are four main towers in the game - blaster, glue, boomerang and flashlight. Each can be upgraded twice and each have their own unique style. The blaster is the cheapest tower but still packs a punch, glue damages enemies slightly but also slows them down, boomerang hits a large area and affects multiple creeps at once, and flashlight gets more powerful the longer it's trained on an enemy. To place a tower, you just tap the square of ground you want to place one on, and select the tower. It's very simple. In addition, there are four super weapons, controlled by the accelerometer - including a giant spider which slows anything in it's path. These weapons don't auto fire, you must manually activate them - and they all have a 'breathing period' after use, so that you have to use them strategically.
As well as the standard Tower Defence gameplay (build tower, destroy enemy, upgrade tower, destroy harder enemy, goto 1), there's also a few unique twists. The first is priority targeting, a feature that tells all of your towers to attack (if in range) the creep that you want them to. Simply tap on the enemy to do so. This feature is very handy, because some times the towers won't target the closest threat, they will attempt to go through the enemy list in order - while that is somewhat logical, it doesn't take into account enemy speed, resulting in enemies missing the glue towers and zipping ahead to your unguarded bed. Secondly, you can target the environment, and specifically, rocks, trees, skulls, or anything that stands in your way of placing a tower. Doing so earns you more cash for upgrades, and so laying waste to the terrain is an important piece in the strategic puzzle.

The game has 8 levels, with the choice of playing a set number of waves or endless waves. This technically works out to 16 levels, but you must play through the set wave before attempting endless for that map- this will in turn unlock the next map. There are two map styles, each with their own creeps and unique objects, and all of these are presented extremely well. In fact, the hand drawn aesthetic really works in the game's favour, providing depth and lots of charm. This charm extends into the sound effects, which sound mostly vocalised - giving the game a lot of character - we just wish that there was some music to back these up. Fortunately, you can add your own without losing the great effects.
For Tower Defense addicts, the difficulty level may be a little easy - once you've mastered how best to destroy the terrain whilst not letting a creep through your defences, it's simply a matter of how and when to use your super weapons for obliterating the harder waves. Therefore it's an easier recommendation to those of you that are new to the genre. Nevertheless, The Creeps offers a solid experience overall, and at this extremely low price we highly commend it.
Bringing unique features to the genre at a low price point, The Creeps is a fantastic introduction to the world of Tower Defence games. It won't frighten you.
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