Tower defence is a mainstay of the indie landscape, with many brilliant tower defence games released over the years, so any new game in the genre has a lot to live up to. Still, with little competition available to Windows Phone owners, it is possible that even less worthy titles might make a splash. So as Dagari Studios stride up the gangplank to HMS Windows Phone, the question is: are we being presented with a talented new captain, or do we have nothing more than an opportunistic swab, likely to fall overboard the moment any other company comes to rock the boat?

We can certainly say that they look the part: the graphics are clear and bright throughout, and the menus look particularly swish. This is a game from a company that knows how to make an attractive game, and no mistake! There are a few grammatical errors scattered around the place, but that’s completely understandable coming from a small Portuguese start-up company.

More importantly, though: how does it play? Pirates Assault is a fixed-path tower defence game: which is to say, the enemy has a fixed path to follow, and the player’s task is to make this path deadly, through a combination of guns alongside the path and explosive obstacles on it. It’s also a game which is opaque about what routes the enemy will take: it simply presents you with the map and lets you guess what to expect. Your only option is to act and react quickly to the threats as they come, or (more likely) restart the level repeatedly until you know what paths to expect the enemy to follow.

On top of this, the enemy has an unusual win-condition; rather than simply rushing to a point on the map and immediately sapping your life, they race to a treasure chest then rush back off screen with your gold. So much, so Defense Grid, you might think, but killing them while they carry off your gold actually results in you losing it. Instead, you must retake the gold by tapping five times on the offending ship, before your towers destroy it. Similarly, your only way to earn ‘rum’ to pay for new/upgraded towers is to tap ten times on passing cargo ships – taking a leaf out of Plants Vs Zombies’ book as a means to keep the player occupied at all times.

Curiously, it quickly becomes apparent, at least once you’ve unlocked the second – of four – defensive measures, that there is only one angle of attack that is ever hard to defend per level, and this is the area from which fast enemy ships will descend, taking your gold before your towers can destroy them. The trick is to make a defensive line sufficient to kill them before they leave the area, but after you’ve retaken your gold from them – the game tasks you with making an inefficient defence network to succeed. This is both frustrating and tiring, requiring you to know in advance the exact route they’ll take, and involving near-constant tapping from you in the end game.

There are a few other significant flaws in the game: as already mentioned, there are only four defensive options in the game, and even within these few options the game fails to offer many tactical options: aside from the standard cannon, you have a scattershot catapult that is actually useful as a close-range weapon only, and then two obstructions which serve much the same purpose. Where are the weapons with more esoteric abilities? On top of this, the fact that there are only ever three types of enemy (slow and weak, slow and tough, fast and tough), following only three routes per level, makes the game just a little too unvaried.

It’s a real shame, as it’s clear that Dagari Studios have put a lot of effort into this gaming, making it look the part and trying to liven things up by having the player constantly interacting with the game, and adding little visual flourishes like the catapult firing a range of random items – including the occasional parrot – instead of rocks. If only they’d spent a little more time adding in more varied enemies and routes for them to follow, some more weapons, and maybe some more levels, and this could have been a classic. As it is, I can’t really recommend it as anything more than a brief distraction. Nevertheless, I look forward to seeing Dagari Studios’ next game!

Pirates Assault Gameplay Video

Pirates Assault Screenshots

Version Under Review : 1.0.0.0

Website : Dagari Studios , Twitter : @dagari_studios

There is a free version available and the full version is available for $1.99, the only limitation on the free version is that it has ads.

Windows Phone 7 Game Rating

Pirates Assault WP7 Download – Free

What do you think of this WP7 Game ?

Scan this QRcode with Bing vision ( Hit the hardware Search button and click on the small icon that looks like an eye ) on your Phone to download this game on to your Windows phone device.

Top Windows Phone 7 Games