McDroid

McDroid is a game with plenty of charisma and sweet ideas. It takes a tired genre and throws it together with elements from elsewhere to create an engaging and charming hybrid. It's aesthetically excellent, with some provocative ideas, but technical problems in larger sections of the game hamper the overall experience. Difficulty spikes and repeated levels also let the game down and prevent if from being truly memorable, but underneath the issues lies an interesting game which provides quite a rush.

While McDroid shoots for the stars with these additions to the tower defense genre, it mostly ends up flaming out in the atmosphere.

The problem McDroid has is that it really doesn’t offer anything that we haven’t actually experienced in a game before, and for a while now the consensus seems to be that people are bored with the tower defence genre. McDroid’s inability to do anything genuinely new is a real problem. People already have their favourite tower defence games.

If you’re willing to put up with the difficulty, you will find some stuff to really like about McDROID. It has a fantastic art style, and the planet is always interesting to look at.

As fun and quirky as its narrative may be, McDroid's attempt at changing up the tower defence genre makes for a frustrating experience. Its mechanics render gameplay a micro-managing nightmare that is repetitive and lacklustre.

McDroid, is a game which has been clearly developed by a team with great ambitions, but ultimately failed to reach its desired heights. It’s like a creation of Dr Frankenstein, a product of a landslide of influences and ideas, which ultimately gave birth to a monster, which is repulsing in its appearance, difficult to control, and ultimately has no personality of its own.

McDroid gives little clue as to what is going on when you first load it up. The first hour fails to impressand players may wonder if it is worth continuing onwards. After overcoming that hurdle, there was enjoyment to be found in the game. The mixture of resources and weapons can create exciting scenarios as rockets and lasers fly across the screen, but there is still a large element of strategy in what you're doing. The game leans more towards those who are a fan of the genre and others won't feel the need to play past the story, but it still does a serviceable job at trying to cater to a wider audience. The cel shading gives the game a more unique feel alongside the very strange but amusing story and dialogue, but glitches have been found of which people will need to be careful. For its price, McDroid has a decent amount of content and won't set you back much, but if you decide to pass on it, you won't have missed too much.

Creative and charming, McDROID is an endearing little adventure with some hefty core gameplay chops that very nearly carry the game all on their own. Sadly, it nevertheless gets dragged down by an over-aggressive difficulty curve, a heavy reliance on repeating content, and some major lapses in polish.

In truth, this writer wasn’t overly excited at the prospect of playing McDROID when they first read into it – more fool me. While I still harbour reservations about its long-term appeal (a product of the genre’s repetitive nature more than anything) McDROID is an excellent tower defense romp with enough candied charm to keep you coming back.