7 Cities – I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but until recently, I didn’t realize just how engaging tower defense strategy games such as Fieldrunners and Zombie Attack can be. The concept didn’t seem all that challenging so I never looked at the genre closely.
However, once I started playing them, I really got into the mindset of constructing towering infernos. Now, I’m a TD fool. It’s a thinking person’s, strategy game combined with the chance to get all up and medieval on bad guys.
Neptune Entertainments 7 Cities is one of the latest iterations to make it to the App Store, and it’s a pretty good one. Like the rivers in the game, it runs deep and wide.
7 Cities TD’s premise is that greedy pirates are out to loot gold from seven cities built on the banks of rivers. The object, as it is with every game of this genre, is to strategically place towers where they can best repel and destroy the invaders.
With 7 Cities your pirate enemies travel in ships that are either fast or lumbering; either lightweight or armored. You can build towers that launch a fusillade of arrows, cannon balls, lightning bolts, tornadoes, and auras. Each tower does specific kinds of damage to specific kinds of ships. Place them at strategic river bends and stack them so they work together to destroy pirate ships. Towers with heavy-duty weaponry cost more gold than towers with light-weight armaments, a pay-as-you-play trait common to many games.
7 Cities has a lot going for it: Unlike some other tower defense games, 7 Cities gives you the option of upgrading your towers’ defenses once you have collected enough gemstones to unlock their secrets. The graphics are quite good too, although there’s really not much to look at. The flute-music soundtrack befits the New World, Aztec-like environment. You have options to set the soundtrack and audio SFX in increments rather than on a slider. I like the simplicity.
It’s inevitable that someone familiar with Subatomic Studios’ Fieldrunners would want to compare it to 7 Cities. For me, it’s a toss-up. 7 Cities have more levels and towers. I prefer the graphics of Fieldrunners. That’s not to say 7 Cities has poor graphics. Each is equally well rendered but they’re different so one-to-comparisons are impossible. I think Fieldrunner is more fun although it lacks the depth of 7 Cities. They’re both usually priced at $4.99 but 7 Cities is on sale right now for $2.99. Both give you your money’s worth with endless hours of gaming.
