Defend Your Castle

When WiiWare was originally announced, many foresaw the coming of flash game remakes for it. Defend Your Castle is the first WiiWare title to translate an internet-based game to the Wii remote on WiiWare, but it adds a number of features to its free, net-based older brother to merit its inclusion in the WiiWare catalog which make it worth a look for fans and strangers alike.

The premise of Defend Your Castle is quite simple and very popular in flash-based internet games: players protect a home base from a never-ending flow of enemies that starts out as a trickle and eventually grows to be a flood. In this particular title, a castle serves as the base to protect, with stick creatures assaulting it in daily waves. Enemies are dispatched by grabbing them with the cursor and tossing them into the air -- gravity does the rest, resulting in a splatter of sticks accompanied by a delightful shriek of pain. Of course, if foes aren't launched high enough into the air, they'll land safely, recover, and carry on. This process of flicking the remote to kill enemies is gratifying but also tiring after long periods of time.

For each enemy that is slain, points are awarded. At the end of the day, when the sun sets, the attack ceases and players are given a chance to buy upgrades to their castle, fortify its walls, repair damage, etc. This becomes the driving force as players progress: buy the upgrades, convert enemy soldiers to do work for you, and take out the next swarm. Converting foes to shoot arrows at enemies, deploy bombs on command, generate magic spells, or gradually repair the castle's walls are all fine mechanics to help even the odds as the waves grow more and more intense, but in the end, one can't help but wish for more upgrades.

Defend Your Castle can get tiring when played alone, but with friends, things can get very crazy. Defend Your Castle is pretty addicting, as simple as it is, and with friends, the repetition is not as hindering. A higher level of difficulty can help make things get more interesting more quickly, as well. Sometimes with multiple players and dozens of enemies on screen at once, being able to pick and toss foes can become a bit chaotic, however. Despite this qualm, the game's mechanics work smoothly and multiplayer is convenient, allowed players to join and drop out at any time.

The art style is considerably improved over the flash version, featuring a homemade look (no blood this time), with foes made from buttons, pencil lines, and bottle caps who use popsicle sticks as battering rams and popgun caps as explosives. The castle and its environs are made from construction paper, and even the menu screen is full of homey articles such as Scrabble pieces, playing cards, and line-rule paper. That said, it really doesn't look specifically grand. The art style is endearing and intentional, but it's not as detailed as it could be, either. The sound is downright disappointing -- the sound effects present are comical, but get repetitious, and there is no music to speak of during gameplay, which is a downright shame considering the epic battle music in the game's title screen. Overall, the presentation is smooth with a solid framerate and a coherent theme, and for such a simple and cheap game, it's hard to knock at the visuals and audio too much.

That's really all there is to Defend Your Castle -- but for five dollars, one doesn't really need to ask for much more. It's simple and can get grating after prolonged periods of time, but is executed very well, with co-op multiplayer adding longevity.