Game Reviews: Hut Defense 2

The incongruously named Hut Defense 2 does not seem to be a sequel of anything. Also, it is not a very good game.

At first blush, Hut Defense Only 2 appears to be in the same family of "build a garrison, get little guys to fight" game as Incursion and Kingdom Rush. However, it isn't quite the same.

For one thing, your troops don't respawn; you just have to buy new ones when your guys die. This makes a huge difference.

But a bigger difference is that there's practically no limit on the number of guys who can spawn at a single hut. No limit besides the total limit of guys you're allowed to have at a time, anyway.



Concentrating that many dudes into a single spot throws game balance way out of whack. While later levels have split paths that force you to cover more areas, it doesn't make that much difference overall. Enemies are going to get mobbed by fifteen to thirty guys at once, and they will usually die instantly.

Have I mentioned that it's possible to upgrade your stuff in between missions? Not that there's a point to it.

The balance gets worse: Ranged guys slaughter your guys wholesale (that is, any conflict between them and your guys is incredibly one-sided) unless you're paying attention*, and even when you do pay attention they're going to drop like flies. It might have just been a quirk, but at one point I saw a basic ranged enemy kill fifteen guys with one shot.



And if you recruit your own ranged guys, turns out they have less range and/or take longer to draw their bows (or at least, it did the first time I played it-I'm not sure what's up with the apparent differences, but I was playing it on a different computer before).

It's possible to gain enjoyment from this game, but not through playing it the way it's meant to be played. See, the game has some amazing music, so if you cue up a level and then just ignore it, you'll get to hear this awesome soundtrack that, knowing Flash games, was probably stolen from somewhere. I wasn't paying attention so I can't be sure, but I think you even get the best music if you just let it play forever.

So, um, you probably don't want to play this game unless you're doing it for the music.

*Also, your controls for moving your guys around are terrible. All you can do is tell them to stay where they start or to advance or retreat to one end of the path. So ordering your guys around to get rid of ranged enemies starts with ordering them to retreat, wait for the ranged guys to follow them, and then order your guys forward. And the ranged guys will sit off screen and attack if your guys are at the start of the path, so that's completely unhelpful. I wanna tell guys exactly where to go, not order advances and retreats.

-Signing off.