Defense Grid 2 (beta is out)

Ryom

Ryom

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Oct 11, 2006
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Anyone here participating in the Defense Grid 2 beta? It has two levels available for play with a few games modes available. I've got some pretty rocking scores so far, managed to get to rank 16 on elite.

Who else is playing?
 
I've loaded it up and played a tiny bit. Not that interested in playing it until it is done, or at least further along, so I'm just making sure it runs and doesn't crash since that's what the devs have asked for. So far so good on 3 different systems.
 
I've found a handful of bugs so far, one game breaking :)

Can't wait for the full release!
 
djoye said:
How do you get into the beta?
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I am also interested in this and some digging pulled up they might do giveaways through their social media pages if you want to keep on top of that.

I might give it a shot but not sure how well it will work out. Wish I had seen this on KS I would have tossed a bit towards. Loved the first one
 
djoye said:
How do you get into the beta?
Click to expand...

I kickstarted it back in the day. They did a KS, which only raised enough money for a DG1 expansion, but they hoped to do DG2. They got investors to back it, so all the KS backers get a copy.
 
Got a extra beta key if anyone wants to give it a run. Loving it so far and cant wait for the release.

K6MGY-TZ7RB-RI8C3
 
DefaultMeh said:
Got a extra beta key if anyone wants to give it a run. Loving it so far and cant wait for the release.

K6MGY-TZ7RB-RI8C3
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Played the first one and quite enjoyed it... thank you Mr. Kind Internet man!
 
I like it so far. Graphics are quite a bit better than the first game.

One thing I've noticed though, the game is much easier. The funny thing is the towers are the same as the first game. With one notable exception: The missile tower for Anti Aircraft. It will now target ground units too. This makes the game way too easy since they have a huge range. Not to mention each missile does about the same damage as a cannon shot. So as long as you spam a bunch of missile batteries everywhere, it's hard not to win. They cost 300, 600 and 1200 to upgrade compared to the cannon which is 200, 400, 800. So they cost a bit more but are way more useful. Each upgrade gives it another missile that shoots out. So again, like a 3 cannon upgraded tower from DF1. But with like 2x or 3x the range.
 
Hopefuy they tweak that. I don't want it to be too easy. The first game had just the right amount of challlenge to it and the difficulty curve was pretty much perfect, but making a unit like that will just defeat the purpose of playing the game.

I always thought the first game was balanced in terms of range and power of the towers and their upgrades.
 
I was progressing through the story mode yesterday. Very fun game although I really need to get over trying to complete each stage perfectly.
 
Just pre-ordered this. I'll wait for the release version before I start playing this.

By the way, I saw in some Steam community discussions that there's an online store in the game. Are they selling additional official maps as DLC through this store, or is this for the community maps?
 
Hornet said:
Just pre-ordered this. I'll wait for the release version before I start playing this.

By the way, I saw in some Steam community discussions that there's an online store in the game. Are they selling additional official maps as DLC through this store, or is this for the community maps?
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I think they are going to sell official maps through it. But the interface is broke as hell for the store and I couldn't get my free map from last week. There is one listed on the store right now as free, but my store is just a blank page that says store. There is supposed to be another free map this week also.

They have Steam Workshop integration for map making so there's no pressure to buy more official maps.
 
I have mixed feelings on this sequel. It's more of the same as DG1, which is good, but it has lost it's heart. It feels sterile. It has updated graphics, and the environments look good, much better than in the first game. But the same can't be said about towers and enemies. Both look awkward to me, the towers looked much more functional in the first game, and their upgrading was much better, now when you upgrade a tower it simply vanishes into a hole, and the new tower comes out in it's place. Lame imo. And the aliens look well just bad, nothing like in the first part. In the first they looked mechanized and tough. Now most of them look like a chicken had a baby with an insect. Others simply look like insects. And some look like dinosaurs without heads.

But those are just externalities, if the game mechanics are still there there is no problem right? Sadly this is not the case. Game mechanics are much simplified now. The first game got it's appeal from the fact that the aliens were after your power cores, and the more cores you allow them to take, the less resources you can salvage. So your first aim was always to kill the aliens before they could reach the cores at all. Another fine thing was, that you gained interest for unspent resources. So you couldn't build towers like no tomorrow, because the more money you kept the more you made. This made a very interesting juggle to always have just as much firepower built that is absolutely necessary to kill the next wave of aliens, and no more. Because that meant loss of resources and less score and the end. Or on harder levels lack of resources to build enough defences for the next wave.

Now the basic principle is the same in DG2 too, the aliens come for the cores and take them if you allow them. But the fine details are completely eradicated. It doesn't matter if you kill the aliens before or after taking the cores as it doesn't influence your resources. And interest is fixed, you always have the same resource flow no matter how many credits you have. So it's completely unnecessary to hold back on building, you can empty the treasury all you want all the time with absolutely no repercussions.

To me this means the game just lost it's heart. Now all you have to focus on is tower placement that's it.

There are a few new features like upgrades to towers that give them more firepower, or disrupt shields on aliens, or give a score(not resource!) boost, but it's not enough to offset the loss of the things mentioned above. And there is one more thing missing, there are no flyer aliens anymore. All of them are walkers. Or rather there is something that could be considered flyers, as sometimes they drop a pod next to the core housing to hatch aliens right there. Frankly this I feel is cheating in a tower defence game. It kills the purpose of the game if the enemy can appear right at the finish line.

Amongst other minor new features are self repairing aliens, that if you stop hurting them get back to full health, but as soon as you're prepared for them they make no difference. And aliens that drop shields on levels for other aliens to pick up, but with the disruptor tower upgrade this feature becomes mute to. I mean you don't have to alter your strategy because of it, just upgrade a few towers to disruptor capability and you're set.

And you have new superweapons as well, but as I found out most of them are too weak to make a difference. So you'll stick to one or two of them anyway.

Unusually for a tower defense game there is also some kind of back story, but it's even more lame than in the first game. And they went too far with AIs I mean you have these AIs whose only role seems that they spout nonsense into your ear all the time, one of them more annoying than the other. In the first game you only had one, that was fine. If they wanted more characters they should've made some real NPCs not all of them AIs. Or small cutscenes maybe to make it more personal. But there is nothing like that. They wasted money on recording half a dozen idiotistic voices in a studio.

And to add insult to injury there are serious balancing issues as well. Levels don't get harder gradually, rather they have a choke point around the middle, where it gets tough, but if you survive that it becomes a walk in the park till the end, only a few levels are exempt from this rule. And the missile towers are to powerful, while tesla towers are completely useless. Cannon and meteor towers have not much worth either.

So that's what I think about Defense Grid 2.

Mind you I haven't played all the game modes yet, only the basic campaign. But it feels lacking. If I want to score it it's a 6 out of 10.
 
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