This review is rather long, so if you just want a small summary of why I recommend this game skip to Results and read from there.

Puppygames develops an awesome tower defense game which changes the elements of your traditional TD. The awesome research options between levels, harvesting of resources, and the variety of tools to change alien tactics creates a unique experience between each level.

Campaign:
Revenge of the Titans, obviously you know the name as you are looking at this review. This game offers an interesting differentiation onto a typical Tower Defense game; enemies destroy your towers and the idea is to block the path rather than create a route. The world is being attacked by an alien species from Jupiter’s moon Titan. The name of the game seems to make me believe maybe we attacked them first? But yet again there is no real story other than the world is under attack and you are chosen to lead the defense force. You not only defend the earth, but you progress through the solar system defeating the alien scum at each planet until you finally arrive to Titan. Each planet has about ten levels, each which offer new bosses and pose new challenges that keep you on your toes.

Gameplay:
The towers are upgraded by placing upgrading towers adjacent to towers. This is interesting as you can place multiple add-on towers adjacent to a tower to create rapid fire towers, or even long range sniper towers. The difficulty curve seems rather perplexing, with little explanation onto how to play this game can seem rather difficult till you figure it out. The game is incredibly entertaining, once you figure out the general gameplay you can really get into this game. You are given one upgrade point per level which you can use to customize your defense force. With about 73 upgrades and only 50 levels means you cannot research every possible option. The game allows you to respec after each mission, which allows you to manipulate your towers to achieve optimal defenses for each level. When playing the campaign make sure you remember that your money transfers between levels (and your towers automatically sell returning funds from the towers). This information is useful, as you can start saving early making the later levels easier. If you mess up after beating a level and lose too much money you can go back replay the level prior to it and fix your mistakes. This allows you to bring a better end result and alter your starting cash in the next mission.

Results:
Revenge of the Titans is an epic tower defense game that drives in new challenges and creates new concepts not seen in previous games of the same genre. The campaign is long and difficult, on the standard setting, but you can make it easier at the drop of a hat. Each level requires you to respect in order to take advantage of alien weaknesses, but this makes each level dynamic and unique.

Pros:
+Fast paced tower defense game
+Upgrade screen allows for between match tactic customization
+Transfer of funds between levels means how you play the level before impacts the later levels
+Power-Ups transfer between levels, so you can easily stack them. (I for example used none of my abilities until the last level to make the final boss incredibly easy).
+Great difficulty curve, if you are a beginner you can significantly reduce the difficulty to ease up the levels.
+Gameplay from prior levels transfers to the next level, meaning you must play tactfully throughout the entire game.

Cons:
-Poor tutorials, by the time you figure out all the nuances of the game it’s already over. (I for example didn't realize that levels don't start until you place your first mineral extractor until level 48 - this would have been useful to know early on)
-Recommended upgrades seem rather worthless (it’s better to just rush barricades)
-Not a traditional tower defense (there is no maze building, and to upgrade towers requires add-on towers which can be hard to space)

Revenge of the Titans is what you get when you inject some real indie love into a tired genre - style, innovation, experimentation and instant playability. Some may find themselves frustrated with a customization approach that leaves room for epic failures, but most will find the open-ended nature of it all quite refreshing.Revenge of the Titans doesn't bring too many new ideas to the crowded tower defence genre, but its blend of real-time strategy and arcade action does provide it with a unique twist. And it looks and sounds great, too! A clever, huge and charming strategy game. While the puritanical focus on retro minimalism means it might not be as rich in visual variety as its contemporaries, the breadth of the strategy coolly grants it safe harbour from the grey reaper of rinse'n'repeat boredom.It's simple, well executed and, so long as you're not bothered by a little trial and error with your research, good fun.

Recommended: A fairly complex tower-defense once things start to decently unlock which is difficult but not overwhelming and with Puppy Games' brilliant retro aesthetic. Definitely worth a play if you are a TD fan.

Full review is available here

Revenge of the Titans is a 2D tower defense game with RTS elements developed by London-based studio Puppy Games. As in all tower defense games, your goal is to halt the oncoming horde of enemies by strategically placing defensive towers that destroy them. In this case, humanity is being attacked by aliens coming from Saturn’s largest moon Titan.

The campaign spans 50 missions across 5 locations (Earth, The Moon, Mars, Saturn and Titan). After you’re done with the 10-hour campaign, you can spend more time with the game in the Endless, Survival and Sandbox modes. There’s a good amount of content here. If you’ve played a classic tower defense game, Revenge of the Titans will feel pretty familiar. However, what separates this game from the usual suspects are the subtle yet profound base building and resource gathering elements found in traditional RTS games.

Every map starts with just your base which you have to protect from the Titans. Then you have to build factories that mine crystals in order to make money to be able to purchase other buildings and towers. You also have additional buildings at your disposal such as shield generators, cloaking devices, reloaders, etc. All of these can be unlocked over time in the research screen before every mission. After completing each mission you are awarded with a single research point. Apart from buildings and towers, you can research technological advancements which bring their own benefits to the table. The great thing about the research system is that you can re-spec the entire system before each mission. This enables you to try out different tactics and you will need certain towers and abilities when facing a particular enemy.

Enemies come in a pretty large variety of shapes and sizes and certain missions also throw huge bosses at you which can be very challenging. Certain towers are good for certain enemies, that’s where the research screen comes into play. You need to pay attention as to what types of enemies are coming so that you can choose the appropriate towers and technologies otherwise you’ll have a pretty hard time finishing a mission.

The game will also randomly distribute power ups and cash bonuses during missions which you will need to manually pick up on the map within a limited time frame. There’s also a tower that needs to be used against a certain enemy that you have to manually control. Coupled with the base/add-on/tower building, the situation can get pretty hectic at times and certain elements such as the power up pick ups simply come off as an artificial way to increase the action. It impeded on the strategic element and just feels needlessly overbearing.

That said, Revenge of the Titans nails the addictive and tactical core that makes tower defense games so satisfying. And with the RTS twist, it manages to differentiate itself which is really important as the genre is becoming increasingly crowded. It’s a good title for newcomers and veterans alike.

7 OUT OF 10 (GOOD)

I want to like this game, but I found it swiftly crossing the line from challenging to frustrating. It suffers from the standard RTS problem of too much going on at once. Levels are either too simple and over too soon, or alien swarmfests where there isn't enough room to put a tower in or enough time to figure out what's getting blown up where. Maybe other people enjoy repeating levels a dozen times before things are just right, but I certainly don't.

It provides an easy mode, but that doesn't seem to help with the fundamental issues with the game.