The term that comes to mind when I play Fieldrunners is, "Standard", with perhaps a hint of, "Competent". Here is the sort of bare-boneThe term that comes to mind when I play Fieldrunners is, "Standard", with perhaps a hint of, "Competent". Here is the sort of bare-bone essence of countless other tower defense games boiled down to the absolute basics. All the towers are recognizable in their functions and applications, the enemies your usual mix of various hit point levels, various numbers, various speeds, and flying units. The route building is only different insofar as most other tower defense games add a little hitch for the sake of variety, whereas Fieldrunners is stripped to the bone. Art direction is the simple and cartoony look, certainly competent, but resembles nothing quite so much as generic brand Team Fortress 2 without the charm of an interesting implied setting. There's really nothing to get excited about new idea wise.
There are a few oversights. Playing in offline mode led to the game freezing when It tried to upload my score, particularly bothersome since it then didn't register my game as completed, so I didn't unlock the next level. There is a strict policy of needing to unlock the previous level before moving on to the next, which essentially just restricts the player unnecessarily, especially seeing how you only get 4 of the same basic towers to beat each level the first time, making a straight play through potentially quite tedious and limiting the sense of progress you would have gotten from unlocking towers.
However, at the end of the day, Subatomic Studios are no lazy slouches. The difficulty curve is perfect, and surprisingly hard, even on Normal. There is always a challenge at every stage in the game, whether you are diversifying and upgrading a huge range of towers in the end game, or strategically placing precious, individual Gatling gun towers in the initial waves, trying to to give out just enough damage to squeak by. You also must always be considering the future, being sure that a tower you need here won't interrupt your path later. And the health system is at the perfect point where one small mistake doesn't result in what feels like a cheap game over, but even small mistakes feel like a major threat. That time spent playtesting was well spent.
Overall, Fieldrunners may not bring anything new to the table, and it may need more consideration to the overall progression and a bit of bug testing, but it does a great job of delivering the core essence of the tower defense genre. At $5, its a plenty cost effective diversion, particularly if you haven't done Tower Defense before.… Expand