The iPhone is a wonderful little gaming device. It can play computer games, like the classic SimCity as well as classic arcade games like PacMan. It’s also breeding a whole class of new games, like the inimitable DuckDuckDuck. But I’m not going to talk about any of those now. Instead, I’m going to talk about Fieldrunners!
Fieldrunners is a quality little game from SubAtomic Studios (Look, they’re on Twitter!). The premise is simple: you build defenses to kill a seemingly endless assault of bad guys who are trying to get from one side of the screen to the other. If you’ve ever played Tap Defense, you’ll understand how to play Fieldrunners.
The graphics in Fieldrunners are absolutely superb. The multi-touch support is great, too, allowing you to zoom in to or out of the game screen. The towers are all well animated, and the enemies are actually quite fun to watch. They’re well articulated.
The sounds are fantastic, too. The repetitive footstep sounds of the enemies, the squelching of the goo towers, and the crackle of the Tesla coils are all top-notch. The sound track is terrific, too: much better than I had expected it to be.
Fieldrunners is super easy to play. There are a variety of useful strategies you can employ to obliterate your enemies, but ultimately I found the game simply too repetitive to enjoy. It reminded me an awful lot of playing Starcraft at LAN parties in days of yore: I would struggle to build as much as I could, only to watch an endless rush of Zerglings swarm over my base to wipe me out.
The thing about Fieldrunners is that the “levels” don’t feel like levels at all. There’s wave after wave of increasingly tough enemies, but there’s no interstitial sequence between waves in the same way as there is in Tap Defense. So while you are, in fact, leveling up, it feels like a non-stop assault from which you can’t break away. Indeed, I found myself playing long after I wanted to stop simply because there was no built-in break once you get started.
For those that enjoy this kind of game, rejoice! There’s an “Endless” mode that has no specific win condition: you just keep fighting and fighting and fighting!
Bottom Line
If you like strategy games, or are keen to try different kinds of strategies in an otherwise repetitive game, Fieldrunners is probably a good choice. It’s a fun diversion the first couple times you play it, but I don’t think it has a high replay value.
thanks for the review
“It’s a fun diversion the first couple times you play it, but I don’t think it has a high replay value.”
I’d have to disagree. I have spent many many hours of my time and my phone’s battery life playing this trying to come up with a “better” strategy to get a higher score. This is my favorite game for the iPhone so far.
Great! I’m glad you liked it!
I certainly wasn’t trying to badmouth the app; it’s just not my kind of game. Such is the dilemma with game reviews. What I like, others might not; and what I dislike, others might.
I have to chime in, too, and say that this game has gotten more use than anything else (purchased or free) that I’ve picked up in the App Store. It’s still fun every time I go back to play it (some 2 months later).
Check out iPhoneapps360.net ( http://www.iphoneapps360.net) , a cool website dedicated to iPhone apps. It contains app reviews, new apps and app ratings for thousands of iPhone apps. Get latest apps updates and you can even write your own app review!
Great game totally addicted to it. Had to play it ’til I won it.
Try the iphone app iVey and tell your friends.
Will definitely try fieldrunners, but no before I get pacman, can’t wait for my I phone to get in!
Great stuff.
This version of the game gives you a blank field in which you must create your own maze by purchasing the available defense towers. There are 4 different types of towers and each can be upgraded multiple times.
I love that the iPhone has brought out all kinds of new, simple games.