Spice Bandits Review
PROS
- A steady yet introductory upgrade curve through the leveling system.
- Humorous banter from your towers during the levels.
- Great presentation that features all the bells and whistles you're looking for in a TD game without the cluttered screen.
CONS
- Nothing really new to add to the TD genre.
- Some may not like aiding alien invaders in our planet's downfall.
- The pay-wall is discouraging.
VERDICT
The Tower Defense craze of the app store has long subsided but there are still games that take the formula and create a worthwhile experience for fans of the genre. Spice Bandits is one of those games.
- Full Review
- App Store Info
In one of the more funny introductions to a game we've encountered in a while, Spice Bandits introduces the Spice Bandits, a galactic brand of pirates who plunder entire worlds in search of their precious addictive habit. Now they've set their sites on Earth. Most games would have you fight back the invading forces, but not this one. Do you have what it takes to help the pirates beat back Earth's defense force all in the name of spice? If so, please continue with the review.
Once the hot game genre on the app store, the over-saturation of tower defense games burned out a lot of players. The genre is still great for mobile gaming however and Spice Bandits reminds us of this. Each level consists of a ship to protect and entrances that the enemies will march from. The ground is laid out on hexagonal grids which you can place all manner of towers on. The more advanced towers have to be unlocked with spice points acquired from completing levels (or through in-app purchase), and a whole slew of perks can be equipped to make your human blasting efforts all the easier.
As for the towers themselves, it's your standard fare. Machine gun towers to take out infantry, missile towers to help blast vehicles, poison towers to slowly sap health over time, Tesla coils to zap. There's a familiarity to the gameplay but the presentation and little features like the two or four times fast forward go a long way to producing a very solid tower defense experience.
Seeing that each level has multiple game modes and there's a multiplayer component, it's kind of disheartening to have to discuss the pay-wall. Spice Bandits uses the freemium model but some may take issue with its restrictions. After finishing the first continent you either need to be level 20 or pay a high level of spice to gain access to the next area (and this continues throughout the game). Now if you're saving up your spice instead of upgrading your towers, this isn't an issue, and truth be told, it's not too hard to grind to level 20, but this constant barrier to additional content will be a deal breaker for a lot of players, and it's a shame as any tower defense fan should have a ball with this title.
Screenshots
