‘Tower Assault: Curse of Zombie Island’ Review

Line defense games have been around for ages, but have you ever wondered what it’s like to be the attacker? Rouge Pirate Ninja Interactive has created a reverse line defense game, Tower Assault: Curse of Zombie Island, that allows you to turn the tables on unsuspecting villages. Not only is there an onslaught of zombies to control, you do so by firing brains out of a canon to lead their assault.

One of the most common types of games on the iPhone or iPod Touch is tower defense, but Tower Assault: Curse of Zombie Island breathes life into an otherwise over-developed genre. While it doesn’t quite hold up to the cult following of Plants vs Zombies, it does lead the pack in a reverse form of defense games.

Although the storyline is brief, having detailed context is rare in many mobile games. A ship and its crew make their way to an uncharted island to search for supplies. As the crew returns, a witch doctor and his villagers steal their treasure and curses them, turning them into zombies. Now the captain must find his treasure and get the witch doctor to reverse the zombie curse. The now zombified crew can be manipulated by firing brains into objects. Similar to Lemmings, the zombie crew will blindly chase after the brains, even if there are rocks or trees blocking their path.

Wielding a large black canon, brains are fired at shacks, towers and everything else that gets in your way. Trees, valleys and boulders can’t be destroyed and can cause a minor issue as the zombies only travel in straight lines to the fallen brains. Occasionally there appears to be some bug concerns as towers disappear until something interacts with it.

The graphics overall are okay, but one of the most important parts of the game doesn’t quite resemble what it should. Rather than the brains looking as they should, it’s similar to the backside of a baboon. Aside from the bugs causing objects to disappear, the Tower Assault: Curse of Zombie Island is built well. The mechanics are also quite simple making gameplay very intuitive.

As in most tower or line defense games, even if a tower is placed in the path of the waves of enemies, they can bypass them to achieve their goal. Instead of having to destroy everything, the zombies just need to find the most efficient way to the X marked spot. Along the way is the occasional hut, and these can be destroyed to find villagers to add to the crew’s cause, feasting on brains.

The price tag of $2.99 is justified for the 40 levels available, and overall it’s a satisfying game. After the developers resolve some of the issues that are causing bugs, Tower Assault: Curse of Zombie Island will do quite well.

Tower Assault: Curse of Zombie Island is currently available for the iPhone and iPod Touch for $2.99.