I had a reasonably good time playing this game. It doesn't seem to have much variety and has the standard rock-paper-shotgun formula with the towers. To start off there are some negative points I would like to point out. The towers lack proper descriptions and the interface is somewhat disgraceful. I never used any hotkeys because I don't think this game really has any. There is no information regarding towers and it took me longer than I would like to admit to notice that the health/damage/range of towers is displayed at the top of the screen. I guess my screen is so big that a few words at the top don't really grab my attention. As for the rest of it, the enemy damage is very very managable until a point. Some enemy units just pulverize your cannons and there is so little you can do about it. The enemy has disruption which prevents cannons from shooting and some of the missions do as well. I think there are 4/25 missions that have interference from the environment and they can be frustrating as they can be very random. Lightening missions cause towers to stop working and some missions have debris falling on your head which is very very random. I have had it on hard mode and cleared without an issue and then go on easy and just can't keep my turrets up because debris just won't stop landing on them.

That said, the game itself is rather entertaining. I don't think it has much replay value but if you are looking for a good 10 minute tower defense game, just take a map and go for it. It had some novel concepts in it, like towers can only be placed in certain places etc. which give it more of a challenge which both annoyed me but made it unique and fun. I would definately recommend this game to people who enjoy a good tower defense game. It won't be so hard that you rip your hair out but it isn't so easy (well, it can be) that you can afk out and survive.

This TD game is among the good ones. I don't think this is as good as the original anomaly games, since those games gave you more tactical options. But still, this game gives a great TD experience compared to many other TDs.

I don't usually play those kinds of games, I usually just play them for 5 minutes and drop them, but this is probably the slickest looking, well-polished tower defense game I've seen, which was what drew me into it and contributed to my playing it all the way through. And killing pesky humans! Who wouldn't jump at the chance?

The game is about how to manage your income and optimally allocate turrets. It takes a while to figure out which technologies/turrets work best in what situations. Eventually you find and set up some pretty powerful turret combos. The basic "blaster" turret is extremely powerful and durable when fully upgraded. I didn't think the booster turret (the one that doesn't shoot and only supports other turrets) was worth it, it took up a spot and didn't really do much, and the enemies would usually go for that first for some dumb reason.

The pause feature is pretty huge. It makes any turret setup or tactic manageable to execute. It really took the steam out of the later levels. Maybe that is the point? If you don't ever use pause to play let me know how it goes.

Each turret can have a special ability, and you get to manage all that and passive bonuses in a tech tree. I found that the energy bonuses and the sniper ability (which increases range of turrets) were very, very powerful. It's the only way to get a decent number of turrets firing on each enemy, which makes some of the boss-type encounters into a joke. I thought it was fun to manage all the angles and set up spots where I'd set of bunch of turrets to sniper, so that the big tanks would get crushed.

This is like Space Run, except here the intensity of combat is a bit less intensive than what you would find in Space Run. They play differently no doubt and it is more akin to Defense Grid but with offensive enemies that will attack your base. On easy mode, this would require you to manage each tower with less vigilance, but on higher difficulty, it would be more of a chore than anything else. Assuming you like such activity, it would surely entertain you. Otherwise, I'd suggest you try basic TD games where enemies are passive in action.

Overall a great game, but if you had played Defense Grid 1 or 2, there is no reason to delve into it, yet. Again, it all boils down to which type of enemies you want: active or passive. That's the only thing different between this and DG. DG however seems to have more varieties overall.

Buying this game as part of the October Humble Bundle, it's a good way to kill time, but not a lot of time. The game is very short and repetative if trying for all the achievements.

I have a somewhat unhealthy addiction to Anomaly games, so this review maaaaay be a little biased. Especially more so seeing as I can safely say this is my favourite entry in the series. The previous three Anomaly games were purely tower offense oriented where the player would roll out with a convoy of vehicles and clear certain checkpoints, rescue some scientists, or travel from A to B. Anomaly Defenders moves away from this to a tower defence perspective and does this to exceptional standards.

STORY
After years of war and suffering at the hands of alien torment, the human fleet is now ready to carry out its own invasion against a race that once threatened its very existence. The Commander from the first three Anomaly games decides he no longer wishes to take part in the genocide that would soon follow, and therefore makes the hard call of commanding the alien units in defending escape pods to off-planet. And that's where YOU come in.

GAMEPLAY
The game is aimed at both casual and hardcore tower defence strategist with elements of simplicity and complexity involved. Familiarising yourself with the types of enemy units and propelling the right towers to dispatch those tanks is crucial in understanding the balance. You have your basic selection of various tower units with their respective upgrades. Towers are placed on spawning hotspots with each tower consisting of three possible upgrades. You also have perks and functions in your arsenal to add an extra layer of buff to tower durability and longevity, as well as influcing your rate of income. Maps vary with some symmetry and linear designs, but all fairly challenging as the missions and difficulty progress. The variety in units also help in the challenge factor as you will strive to find ways to gain the upper hand against certain unit types.

You should expect to pump out anywhere between 4 to 30 hours worth of playtime depending on how you play the game. If, like me, you plan on completing everything then you will find yourself spending anywhere between the 20-30 hour mark trying to complete the game on easy, normal and hard difficulties. Alternatively a single run should take anywhere between 4-7 hours depending on how familiar you are with tower defence games. Unfortunately campaign is the only game mode in Anomaly Defenders and it only spans 24 missions. There really isn't a great deal of replay value unless you wish to mix and match upgrades in the technology tree. Some sort of map creator/sharing service would have been a nice addition.

GRAPHICS & AUDIO
Graphically the game is onpar with past Anomaly games. Looks great and runs well without falter. You will encounter various environmental conditions whether that be lightning storm or meteorite showers which adds to the level of detail. One complaint I do have is that for every kill there is a flash of light. This may not seem like a big deal, but imagine killing 6 units within 10 seconds. Your screen will be freaking out. If you have any issues with flashing images due to medical conditions, I would recommend you steer clear of this game.

For the first time in an Anomaly game I actually enjoyed listening to the announcer in the background. Voice acting is usually quite poor, but they seemed to have nailed it on this. The soundtrack only has four tracks but they are really good. I found the game to be that much more exciting listening to the exhilerating music pounding away in the background. It got the job done and that's all that matters.

OVERALL
A fantastic final entry in the Anomaly series and one that should definitely be checked out by tower defence fans.

PROS
+Fantastic way to end the series. Full on tower defence.
+Technology tree expands on gameplay.
+24 action packed missions - bumped to 72 if achievement hunting.
+Visually looks stunning.
+Soundtrack is excellent.

CONS
-Screen flash for every kill.
-No additional game modes to add replayability other than difficulty settings.

Finally, an awesome TD game! Went through so many duds after Field runners 2, then finally stumbled across this game. I figured I would give it a try and im glad I did. Great maps, nice upgrade table, great music and sound. This game is the ideal TD game. Usually micromanaging aggrivates me, but this games seems to mesh the mircromanaging aspect in so well, I hardly noticed I was doing it! I give this a solid 9/10!

I will say if you are into creating your own mazes/paths, you won't find that here. Just good ol' fashion tower defense! Correction, you can make enemies take different paths by adding a specific building to different paths. So in a way you can alter the path of the baddies. Hope this helps!

Anomaly Defenders is the third game in the Anomaly series. In the previous games the player controlled Human forces in a unique "tower offence" mode. Defenders changes the format, and now the player controls the aliens in a more traditional tower defence mode. The aliens are fleeing their homeworld, and you need to prevent the Humans from destroying spaceship launchpads. The main twist compared to other TD games that I've played, is that the Humans can shoot your towers, instead of just ignoring them.

As with most TD games, you can build and upgrade various types of towers using carusarum (effectively money). Carusarum is earned by killing enemy units and you can also build harvester towers to extract carusarum from specific points on the map. You can also use special abilities on your towers, such as repair, rage (damage buff), sniper (range buff) and shield (reduce damage). These abilities cost energy, which is also gained from killing enemies.

There is a tech tree which allows you to spend points on upgrading the strength of your towers and abilities, improve your economy through improved efficiency of harvesters and better cost of buying/selling towers, and increase energy storage. You gain tech points for completing maps based on score and difficulty, and spend them between missions.

I wouldn't say there is a great variety in towers or enemy units. Most are as seen in the previous games, I think the only new enemies are the aircraft. A couple of maps have environmental effects, such as electromagnetic storms and falling debris, which can disable/damage your towers and enemy units.

I played on the middle of three difficulty levels, and only lost one of the 24 maps, but the second half of the game does get quite frantic. I can imagine the top difficulty could be quite challenging. I think my previous experience with the franchise helped me to quickly figure out the best placement for each type of tower. Later map layouts become fairly complex, with enemies attacking simultaneously along multiple ground and air paths. You can influence the enemy path with your harvesters, because the Humans will try to attack those before your launchpad.

The story is non-existent, which is disappointing. The previous games' stories weren't amazing but at least they made an effort. I also find it strange that the Humans don't have a commander (the player unit in previous games). I guess it might have been difficult to program the AI controlling him, but it doesn't really make sense based on the established series lore. The Human forces would get annihilated quickly in the previous games without the commander, so why attack now without him?

The music is fantastic and I didn't experience any bugs. There are no mid mission checkpoints, which means if you lose a map (or crash for any reason) its back to the start. Each map should only take around 20 minutes though. I finished the campaign in 8 hours which is fine relative to the low purchase price.

Overall, if you like tower defence and have a few hours available, this is worth checking out.

its ok

Among the poorer TDs, don't be fooled by the Anomaly tag associated with the relatively interesting reverse-TD games.

- Poor interface, no hotkeys
- No interesting towers
- Economy is very shallow
- Have to click the energy balls when IMO it should be automatic (think of the RSI sufferers among us)

From the creators that brought us the superb tower defense game: 'Anomaly' comes the last game planned in the series.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shUKQC1JTFY
The original incarnation of the Tower Offense sub-genre had players controlling humans fighting alien invaders. Now, the tables have turned. The human counterattack is underway and the alien homeworld is under threat. Defend the planet from the human scum in the final battle of the series. Anomaly Defenders is a fast-paced Tower Defense game where attacking human troops can damage and destroy your defenses. You have to react and counterattack enemies on the battlefield at all times. Each time you start a campaign, the unique tech-tree technologies can be tailored to your needs. Killing humans is easier due to 8 upgradable towers and special functions: repair your towers, make them go berserk, sacrifice them in explosions that are harmful to nasty humans, and use other tricks. This is the final battle against the humans. - Highly Recommended!

One of the worst tower defense games I've played, and one I deeply regret buying. It's sluggish, repetitive and utterly tedious. There is very little variety to be found, and the game is somehow murky despite the neon palette. Even the UI is ugly. I can't think of a single good thing to say. I've put about an hour and a half into this game, and can't bear to put in anything more.

+ Graphics
+ Tech tree
+ Challenging
+ Plenty of maps
+ Energy bar is an interesting concept and requires more tactical placement of your towers

+/- Some of the towers look too similar, can be confusing if there's a lot of action going on
+/- Clicking on energy orbs doesn't always register properly

- Can be a bit hectic during the bigger battles
- Adds nothing truly new to the tower defense formula

[Rating: 78/100]

Anomaly Defenders is a nice little game. I've played through 7 of the 24 levels, all on Medium difficulty (there is also Easy and Hard). Can't really compare it to other full-fledged TD games since I am not much of a fan of the genre, but all I can say is that it is a good TD representation of the Anomaly series.

The towers and the human units would be familiar if you've played the previous Anomaly games. Defenders builds upon that, and you have abilities as well (similar to the previous games, again). You can upgrade units, and sell them on the fly. There is a skill tree too that uses points you accumulate after every successful mission, where you have some amount of freedom to chart your way forward.

One nice feature is that you can pause the game to strategize, and also build towers, apply abilities and upgrade all while the game is paused...too many TD games are just so action-packed you don't have time to think at all.. But that's not the case here.

It's kind of obvious Anomaly Defenders had less work put into it compared to Anomaly 2 judging by the graphics and the lack of story, but the good thing is the gameplay doesn't seem to have been truncated and the price is at least reflective of the smaller effort put into the game. 24 levels seem quite a bit, and you can replay earlier levels on harder difficulties when you've unlocked better upgrades in the skill tree.

Overall, if you were a fan of the Anomaly games prior to this, I'd recommend Anomaly Defenders. Decent amount of content, strong gameplay (even if it starts off too easily) and a reasonable price-tag.

11 bit studios are at it again and this time, they switched the roles back to the classic defense in the gameplay from the previous Anomaly. They definitely made a good job out there and I hope they continue to expand their series and perhaps into something that next-gen players will look forward to...

This game was never a waste, the whole story of Anomaly was worth it, even their in-game music blending was superb. Players out there, I would definitely recommend this game. Don't think twice anymore.

So long I'm really enjoying this game. What you get:
- 24 missions
- tower defense where you not only need to destroy enemy units - these units fight back, so you often must be really carefull and do some micro-manage
- cool graphics! game looks really great
- tech tree you must invest into to get new towers, powers and buffs; technologies you pick up have real influence on gameplay
- different difficulty levels - and medium is not too easy :)

I didn't encounter any bugs or issues so far and game works fine on my PC, which is little outdated now (Core 2 Duo, 4 GB RAM, mediocre graphic card).

On a scale of 1 to 10, I'm leaning towards a 6.5. It's certainly a polished game - the sound and graphics are pretty appealing. It just doesn't feel like there's a lot of variability to the play style, even with the tech tree. It feels like it's a TD game "on rails". I'm not sure I would recommend it for the ~$10 price, but on sale it would worth a few hours of play time.

I love Tower Defense games! The first two Anomaly games were unique as they did a unique twist and had you controlling the enemy wave instead with the goal of destroying towers and getting to the goal. Not only that, but you had a story-driven campaign and you could easily see the production values that went into those games. The 2nd game even had two player co-op. It was just getting better and better...

When I realized Anomaly Defenders came out, I immediately purchased it. Within the first 5 minutes of playing, I was disappointed greatly. The last game did a complete 180 and you now control the alien towers. So just a generic tower defense game... great. This is even further solidified that it lacks any story-driven campaign and you're not sure why you should care about these aliens. The Technology Tree of upgrading towers and unlocking new skills/passives is cool, but it doesn't make the gameplay any less mundane. I'm currently on Mission 21 of 24 and slowly forcing myself to finish it and get it over with. I even noticed some of the missions are re-hashes of older ones.

Thanks for ruining the franchise 11 bit studios!

11 bit is at it again, and once more, they've built a brilliant game.
Following on the anomaly series, now is your turn to be on the defensive and fight the human scum!
I'm a bit over halfway on the missions, went back and replayed a few of the first ones on hard, using the upgrades I've got later on and to extract the last few tech points needed to grow the tech tree.
I've played a few tower defense games and so far, this one is the most satisfying, it takes not only strategic planning, but you also have to micro manage your towers, healing, upgrading and using their special abilities, while making sure you don't run out of the two resources, carosaurum to build and upgrade, and energy to deploy said abilities.
I hope this one not the be the end of the saga, they've got a great game here.

It's a fine game, but I much preferred the first two in the series (Anomaly: Warzone Earth and Anomaly 2) - you should go buy those instead. This is just another tower defence game.