Long before Com2Us trademarked the words “tower defense” Subatomic Studios Fieldrunners  became one of the App Store’s most storied successes and one of the bests iOS games ever.

Fieldrunners 2 ($2.99) 

Tower defense games these days are all gimmicks, smokes and mirrors. This sequel to the best TD game (in my opinion) strips the genre off everything and reinvents it from the ground up. Subatomic Studios quite literally built this sequel that same way and has delivered quality once again!

Presentation

One of the franchise’s bigger strengths comes from the game’s design. The artwork and animation are so unique that you instantly know what game it is upon seeing them. In this re-written version, the animations and graphics look even better.

They needed to do very little in the arts and sounds department, and I’m glad they knew that. Changes start coming in with the bridges and tunnels they added as well as the new loading and level map screens.

Controls

The biggest challenge for any TD game is to make something engaging and different but without convoluting the screen with buttons. Subatomic Studios can practically dish these games while asleep that they’ve found the correct balance between controls and its layout.

Fieldrunners 2′s control scheme remains unchained from the original. You simply tap your tower, drag it to the map and then drop it. To upgrade or sell your towers, you just tap the placed towers. You can still zoom in/out of the map as well as move around it by dragging.

Gameplay

Fieldrunners lacked variety in gameplay modes in that you really practically only had unlimited waves and set amount of wave modes. Fieldrunners 2 blows everything wide open and adds multiple new modes. These include Sudden Death, Time Trial, and Puzzle.

Along with these modes are three different difficulties each level as well as four unique maps to play with. Each level varies from mode to mode which are pre-set, but you can choose your difficulty. Each difficulty awards a set number of stars which can be used to automatically unlock new towers.

Fieldrunners 2 amps up the challenge not only with the usual multiple entrances, but now it comes with trenches, bridges and tunnels to provide one whole enjoyable mess per gameplay session. As you shoot down enemies, you get to earn coins.

Coins can be used to purchase special one time use power ups ranging from the much requested rewind button as well as bombs that both explode and infect enemies.

Every new change and addition to the game feel like they spent hours on end thinking of properly putting them into the game. This sequel feels very organic to the world they’ve created in the first game. They’ve added just enough new features to give you a fantastic new game without taking out anything that made this franchise game changing to begin with.

Suggestion

iPad version is currently in the works, so there goes my suggestion. I usually would and can nitpick here and there with games I review. However, I’m coming up empty handed with Fieldrunners 2.

Conclusion

Fieldrunners 2 appear to be the standard future tower defense games will now be measured on just like Fieldrunners was with the games that followed it. This game does carry some challenge to it, but it’s part of what makes it fun.

Seasons tower defense and new players alike will want to play this game. It’s very addicting, but it’s a drug everyone needs to be on right now.