Defense Task Force
- June 19, 2018
- ChillX Ltd
- 25h median play time
Get on SteamDefense Task Force is a sci-fi tower defense game where you strategically place and upgrade towers to defend against waves of enemies. With over 20 towers and 40 enemies, each level presents a unique challenge. The game also includes a level editor, allowing players to create and share their own custom levels.
PC
Windows
Reviews
- Decent tower defense game with a variety of tower types and upgrade paths.
- Graphics and animations are detailed and visually pleasing.
- Offers a good challenge, especially for players who enjoy grinding for upgrades and mastering strategies.
- Repetitive gameplay with limited map variety and similar enemy encounters.
- Significant performance issues, including long load times and high resource usage, making it barely playable on some systems.
- Lacks a compelling story and endgame content, leaving players feeling that the game is unfinished.
- graphics22 mentions
- 18 % positive mentions
- 68 % neutral mentions
- 14 % negative mentions
The game's graphics are generally considered decent, with detailed tower designs and adequate animations for a variety of enemies. However, players report significant performance issues, recommending medium settings to avoid overloading graphics cards, and some have noted that certain screens, like the player selection, suffer from poor performance even at lower settings. Overall, while the visuals are appealing, they may require optimization to enhance gameplay experience.
“The tower graphics and animations are very detailed and pleasing to the eye.”
“Plenty of different monsters with adequate graphics and animations.”
“The premise and graphics are indeed intriguing.”
“However, the game has an unnecessary full load on your graphics card, both GPU clock and VRAM capacity on max. I recommend not setting higher than medium graphics settings.”
“You really should change something with the visuals, like reducing the enemy details and/or water effect.”
“When it finally gets to the screen where you select your player, the background graphics are a slideshow, even on the lowest graphics settings and the default 1600x900 resolution.”
- story14 mentions
- 14 % positive mentions
- 64 % neutral mentions
- 21 % negative mentions
The game's story is primarily conveyed through a brief introductory cinematic, with no further narrative development during gameplay. While the backstory is praised as intriguing, players find the execution of the plot, particularly the setup on the planet, to be unrealistic and lacking depth. Overall, the focus remains on gameplay mechanics rather than a continuous story experience.
“The backstory is awesome, but when they get to the planet, how they 'set up' on it was definitely ridiculous.”
“The story is limited to just the intro cinematic and does not continue throughout the game.”
“While Defense Grid loads rather quickly and plays just fine on this system, Defense Task Force was another story.”
“On every map, you can continue fighting against more monster waves after you succeed in the mission, to test yourself on how long you can hold them back.”
- gameplay10 mentions
- 20 % positive mentions
- 50 % neutral mentions
- 30 % negative mentions
The gameplay has been criticized for lacking balance and failing to provide a compelling challenge, with many players feeling it falls short of its intended design. While the tower design reflects a strong influence from dungeon games, the overall experience is described as merely "fair" and not suitable for serious gamers seeking depth and progression.
“I can see that the devs were going for a dg vibe with this game and it shows strongly in the tower design and gameplay, but it falls far short of the mark.”
“Apart from the plot, the gameplay is... fair, to say the least.”
“Unfortunately, the balance for any serious gamer is total garbage as of my post and many dozens if not hundreds of hours of gameplay.”
- grinding4 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
Players find the grinding aspect of the game somewhat tedious, as they are initially limited to a single map that requires repeated play to gather resources and upgrade towers before progressing to the next map. While this can feel monotonous at first, many note that it becomes more engaging as players develop their skills and unlock additional content.
“You get only one map unlocked at the start of the game and you have to repeatedly play this map, grinding for resources until you have upgraded some towers enough to be able to beat it in order to unlock the next map.”
“Little tedious at first until you build up and upgrade your skills and maps.”
“You get only one map unlocked at the start of the game and you have to repeatedly play this map, grinding for resources until you have upgraded some towers enough to be able to beat it in order to unlock the next map.”
- stability4 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
The game suffers from significant stability issues, including frequent bugs, high resource consumption, and excessive GPU usage on even powerful hardware like the 1080ti. Players report slow load times, random freezes before and after levels, and crashes accompanied by error dumps.
“Sloppy code, uses a ton of resources, GPU use is through the roof on a 1080 Ti, slow load times, random freezes before/after levels, program crashes with error dumps.”
“Very buggy.”
“Very buggy.”
- optimization2 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
Users report significant optimization issues, with long load times averaging around four minutes and overall gameplay being barely playable and unenjoyable, even after attempting to free up system resources. Despite some minor improvements from closing other programs, the game's performance remains a major concern.
“I tried again after closing all other programs running as I thought the performance hit might have to do with a lack of video RAM (1GB native, up to 4GB with hypermemory). This did improve things somewhat, but load time was still about 4 minutes, and after taking the time to actually go into the game, it is barely playable and certainly not enjoyable.”
- emotional2 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
Reviews indicate that while the campaign may provide a brief emotional experience, players often feel that the game lacks lasting impact, leading to a quick abandonment after completion. The sentiment suggests that the emotional engagement does not justify the investment, as many players do not return to the game after finishing the story.
- replayability2 mentions
- 150 % positive mentions
- -50 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
Many users feel that indie games provide significantly higher replayability and enjoyment for a lower price compared to AAA titles from major studios, leading them to prefer these indie offerings.
“Indie studios provide incredible replayability and fun for just $20, making me less inclined to purchase these so-called AAA games from big studios.”
“The replayability in this game is outstanding, offering new experiences with each playthrough.”
“I love how every run feels different, thanks to the variety of choices and outcomes available.”
