Soldiers vs. Zombies Defense is an entertaining tower-defense style game for Windows 10 Mobile, in which you must defend your town from zombie hordes.
The free game has an army of soldiers available to dispatch against the encroaching zombie legion. You must destroy the zombies before they eat your soldier's brains and destroy your town. The visuals look good with plenty of animated detail, and the gameplay is a nice test of resource management and timing.
Overall, Soldiers vs. Zombies Defense is a fun addition to the Windows 10 zombie genre of games.
While the main menu for Soldiers vs. Zombies Defense is a little on the dark side, it bears a small collection of options. You can jump into gameplay, mute the game's music and access to soldier and zombie wiki pages that list the cast of characters (and gear) you face in the game. Soldiers vs. Zombies Defense includes five soldiers ranging from riflemen to machine gunners. You also have more than 50 zombie creatures to defend against.
Gameplay is level based with 48 levels, spread across two chapters. The first level is more tutorial in nature, highlighting the basics of play. The goal is to dispatch soldiers to create a line of defense and destroy all the zombies that try to pass.
The game screen has an information bar running across the top of the display that illustrates the zombie attack duration, medals earned and coins collected. Across the bottom of the display are thumbnails representing the different soldier types and gear available to buy and put into combat.
Zombies enter the screen from the right and to deploy a soldier, tap on the icon and then choose a green positioning circle that appears. Soldiers vs. Zombies Defense starts you out with a small amount of gold that is used to buy soldiers or gear, plus you can earn additional funds during the battle. In addition to the different soldiers that become available, you have sandbags to slow down the zombies and snipers for one shot kills.
The zombie attacks start slowly with only a few of the undead creatures attempting to get past your troops. Then the waves become more intense in number and zombie strength. Additionally, each level introduces more zombie types and severity.
There is a battlefield management element involved with gameplay in that your soldiers need to reload their weapons from time to time. As they need to reload, an ammunition symbol appears that needs to be tapped. Should a zombie get too close, the soldier can defend themselves with bayonets. However, if a zombie is close enough to stick with a bayonet, they are close enough to take a bite out of the soldier.
At any time during a game, you see the need to re-deploy your troops, the yellow button in the lower right corner of the display removes the soldiers from the battlefield and refunds your gold. You need to be quick in re-deploying troops to the battle because the zombies continue their advance as you send out new troops. Just keep in mind that if one zombie slips past your troops and reaches the left side of the display, the game is over.
Your battlefield performance is rated with one to three medals. The fewer troops that perish, the more medals earned. The medals, in turn, can be used to upgrade the soldier's abilities. You can upgrade a soldier's weapon's damage, melee damage, health, and range. The upgrade screen also allows you to choose which unit type or gear you would like available during battle. This adds to the management challenges as additional troop types become available as you progress through the game.
A fun game but needs more meat on the bone
While I enjoyed burning a little downtime while playing Soldiers vs. Zombies Defense, I couldn't help but feel that the Windows 10 Mobile game needed a little more gusto.
While the game looks nice and plays well, it could use more soldier types and maybe even a few power-ups. The five current soldiers offer a nice range of destructive abilities, but with over 50 zombie types, the balance seems off. Power-ups could be something as simple as an artillery barrage to weaken the zombie wave to allow your troops to reload or re-group.
Decent
3/5
All in all, Soldiers vs. Zombies Defense is a decent Windows 10 Mobile game to pass the time with. It may not be as action-packed as other zombie titles but isn't shy on entertainment value.
Download Soldiers vs. Zombies Defense from the Windows Store