McDROID arrives to heal the world with robotic love!

I’m not a veteran of the tower defense genre by any stretch of the imagination. However, McDROID by Elefantopia isn’t your typical tower defense game. Actually,  I have no idea how to properly categorize it and that really makes me happy. It has that core principal of tower defense in that you do need to defend a particular object. In this case, it’s Shuttle, your closest companion. Then there’s the matter of your weird doggy droid thing being able to run around the level while toting a weapon. McDROID is fresh and innovative in an already fun and addictive genre. I have been loving the challenge as well as the whimsy. You’ll have a hard time finding a better way to lose an entire weekend if you like any kind of strategy and defense game.

If you haven’t heard of the game before, I’ll give you the quick breakdown here. You play McDROID, a small doggy-robot thing. You and your best friend, Shuttle have returned to your Planet, M,  only to find that she’s not doing particularly well. It seems that the Somanto group has been causing some problems with their genetically modified products and it’s up to you to heal her. It’s a tale as old as Wall-E about mechanical beings as the final salvation of nature. So you need to build defenses against the invaders, paid for with the only sensible currency of the future: ludicrously large strawberries. That’s pretty much the long and short of it. Grow strawberries, harvest them to buy weapons and upgrades, protect Shuttle, and heal Planet. Unlike a typical tower defense, players will actually have control of McDROID and will need to pilot her around the game map to harvest those valuable strawberries as well as to actually place the defenses. There is a really strong action element to gameplay that fuels the frantic feeling of it all and kept me highly engaged for hours at a time.

When I first saw the review key for McDROID in my inbox, I was a bit hesitant. Like I said, I’m not really knowledgeable or experienced in the tower defense genre and I wasn’t super enthused by the last couple I had tried to play. Something about the art style screenshots and the humor of that email made me decide to give it a try anyway and I’m thrilled that I did. McDROID works as a hybrid of arcade action, tower defense, and I don’t even know what. Not being able to label it has probably been the most freeing aspect of the game for me. It means that I’m not spending time comparing it to similar titles and I can instead enjoy it on its own merits. Free your mind and the rest will turn into an addictive blur of a robot planting trees to grow strawberries and push back volcanoes while building laser and missile turrets to fend off a horde of crazy mutant things that hunger for planetary destruction.

Challenge levels are great for diamond harvesting.

Let’s talk about progression and persistence. Once a level is completed in McDROID, players are given the option to replay that level on a higher difficulty level. Though it’s not just a replay and more like a continuation since you’ll start off each challenge level with all the same defenses and resources that you had when you completed the normal level. So, if you’re like me, you’ll go and upgrade your arsenal by playing a few more story missions and then come back to replay old missions on normal in order to set up a kick ass defense prior to playing it on challenge mode. The same thing applies to nightmare mode with the exception that it still hands me my metallic ass regardless of how much I’ve prepped by the end of challenge mode.

McDROID also has a drop in / drop out co-op mode which I have yet to take advantage of. Call me stubborn, but I really just want to finish the story missions on my own. However, nobody would blame you if you wanted to a partner to help, especially after the horrible little things that mutate your crops and turn them against you show up. (Malignant mutant botany is the worst!) It’s hard enough to gather bushels of strawberries in a timely manner in order to upgrade items beyond level 2 without having to content with the sources of strawberries being taken away and replaced by lethal bomb trees. Then there’s the critters that pop up and spawn an endless supply of minions if you don’t take them out quickly. Did I mention the giant things that only grow larger as they consume everything in their path? It’s a challenging game is pretty much what I’m trying to say here.

I haven’t even touched on the dialog which is highly entertaining even if it comes almost entirely from Shuttle. Random paint cans and decals show up in various places and allow you to customize the color and design of McDROID to suit your personal tastes. Of course, there’s always the achievements to go after as well as Steam trading cards because we all love them. Most importantly, the game natively supports Xbox 360 controllers which are absolutely the best way to play if you ask me. There’s plenty to love about McDROID and I’m more than happy to spread that word about it. It launches today on Steam, so pop on over there and give it a shot.