Lock’s Quest
Tower defense with deep storytelling
Tags: Construction Combat: Lock's Quest Categories: DS Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Mike "Two Tone" McConnell on Oct 20th, 2008
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Construction Combat: Lock's Quest (title page) | 1 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Adventure | No | ||
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The resurgence of Tower Defense titles has been pretty monolithic. Complexity is not exactly these games’ strong points, yet these games can really extend into at least a story, or something other than their simple arcade roots. It may not be Final Fantasy, but Lock’s Quest is a nice step in that direction. The story of a magical world of Archineers and Clockworks and their long standing war, Lock’s Quest is actually quite well done for the studio responsible for Drawn to Life.
Even though this has a sense of wonder and whimsy that usually denotes kids’ games, it has more in common with Pixar than Disney. It may be a fine distinction, but an important one. The story telling isn’t vapid in the least. Lock is a young boy whose father sends him to the beach to rebuild a wall. The clockwork army attacks; and he is forced to become a soldier. Lock’s father had a mysterious past, and his sister has gone missing. These are RPG staples, but the execution shows a strong sense of narrative.
What makes this title separate from the DS RPG crowd is the gameplay, and Lock’s Quest isn’t a slouch. The tower defense genre is intact. There are multi-part battles each with two cycles, the first where you build your walls and construct the turrets and traps that you can use to stop the marauding Clockwork soldiers. A tweak to the usual system is that Lock can repair walls and turrets as the battle progresses, and attack them himself.
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There are little mini-games to use in both the repair and battles that speed up Lock’s actions. These are as simple as sweeping the stylus quickly across the bottom of the screen. This is a nice touch as many of these games don’t require any involvement after you build. It’s nice to have a version of the genre that you can’t set down and walk away from five minutes at the time.
There is not a whole lot that this game doesn’t do right. I wouldn’t recommend this to everyone, but this is a simple fun game. There needs to be more games like this, it just has a certain quality to it that it appeals across the age groups. It is simple to pick up and play, but it does require strategy and skill. This title is an amazing exercise in crafting a game that appeals to both hardcore and casual players. This is not to be missed.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ Good use of touch screen control + Easy game play with emphasis on strategy + Manages to appeal to both kids and adults |
9.0 |
| What Doesn't | |
| - The more epic nature of this game is not what most Tower Defense fans are used to and hardcore Rampart fans might be disappointed that this isn't an arcade title | |
| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| This takes a simple genre and reworks it. It gets an A for creativity, I am not sure that it will have lasting appeal for every player, but there are two or three who will think this is the greatest game ever made. | |
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Tags: Construction Combat: Lock's Quest
Posted by Mike "Two Tone" McConnell on Oct 20th, 2008 and is filed under DS Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
