I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of waiting for the perpetually delayed Plants Vs. Zombies to make its way onto the iPhone. Fortunately, Trenches has been satisfying my itch for side-scrolling tower defense gaming.
Trenches drops you smack dab on top of enemy lines during World War I's gas, artillery... and yes, zombie ground warfare as you command troops desperate to defeat the refreshingly non-Nazi Germans.
Loved
Trench Warfare: In the game you use a slowly rising budget to call out one of four British troop types or order attacks by gas and shell. Instead of waiting for enemies to come to you, you tap and swipe the screen to urge your troops to advance or retreat across the scrolling battlefield. The goal is to make your way past the barbwire, the trenches and the Germans to the opposing bunker to blow it up and advance to the next level.
Skirmish: The campaign mode of the game, recently tweaked with the addition of special levels that have you assassinating or protecting special units, is a lengthy and fun experience. But it ends. The Skirmish modes don't. These modes let you choose your map, the difficulty and whether it ends for limitless fun. The most recent update also added some new ways to plays, like making you take out a set number of enemies with artillery only. Or protecting a limited number of troops until they make it to the other side.
ZOMBIES!!!: The zombie infection, it appears, has spread from World War II to World War I. In this mode your brave soldiers, (riflemen, snipers, machine gunners, and mortars) try to stave off an ambling mass of the undead. You can't win, but you can certainly take a bunch of the rotting bastards with you.
I loved playing Trenches when it first hit, but I had a few minor reservations. All of those have been resolved with the latest patch which added new types of play to the campaign, tweaked the look of the goal and starting point for troops and added the ability to command an entire screen of troops with one gesture.
Upcoming updates to the game promise to deliver cooperative and competitive multiplayer, more units and factions and extra skirmish mode, which is fantastic, but not necessary. Trenches is already an amazing game.
Trenches was developed and published by Thunder Game Works for the iPod Touch and iPhone on Jan 28. Retails for $.99 USD. A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Played all game types in both campaign and skirmish modes.
Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.


</img> </img> </img> </img>


More...