The original Fieldrunners is one of my favourite mobile games ever. It has the perfect structure of round-based game play that allows for quick pick up and play or extended arcade style high score runs. Fieldrunners 2 takes everything that is awesome about the first game and adds in a lot of new twists to an already perfect game play system.

For the uninitiated the Fieldrunners franchise is a very traditional tower defense game. Each level consists of a map grid on which the player uses their available funds to buy and place towers, which automatically attack enemies and in turn produce more money. The concept is super simple. What makes Fieldrunners stand above most tower defense games is a few key features; namely the art, humour, tower design and level design.

The art in Fieldrunners 2 is fantastic. The game has a fun cartoony style reminiscent of Timesplitters or Team Fortress. After all bigheaded soldiers are way more fun to lead into your death maze than any other kind! The scale of the characters has been changed slightly from the first game, now infantry appear much smaller than vehicles etc… at first this change bothered me, but with the awesome high res art zooming in to the battlefield is way more compelling now then it ever was. The look of the game in general is a perfect next step, all the UI and over map graphics are eyecatching and always polished.

The humour in Fieldrunners 2 is a huge step up from the first game. While the original had a huge heaping amount of personality it had very little flavour text. In Fieldrunners 2 every enemy, tower, level and even cards (the achievements in the game) has awesome flavour text that gives a fun game even more charm. Fieldrunners 2 ranks up alongside Most Valve products in terms of personality, it has its own unique voice that feels original and unbearably lovable.

Enough of the warm and fluffy, when it’s time to get down to brass tacks Fieldrunners 2 delivers as well. The new Towers are for the most part riffs off of existing towers but with fun twists that allow for even more choice and versatility. My favourite new tower that exemplifies the simple differences that mean so much is the Plasma Tower.

The Plasma tower fires globs of hot plasma in all four directions simultaneously when it’s tripped. This is somewhat similar as the Laser Tower (introduced in the original), which fires a laser in one of the four directions in order to hit a line of enemies simultaneously. The subtle difference is that the Laser Tower hits all the enemies at once at the Plasma Tower’s plasma glob travels along and hits enemies. The other twist on the Plasma Tower is when a glob from one Plasma Tower strikes another it causes that tower to fire a volley. This combo system is awesome. Both towers fill a similar roles but the Laser Tower is much better at taking out crowds of light infantry where as the Plasma Tower creates a chaotic combo system that is great for pummeling slow movies enemies repeatedly. The key to victory in Fieldrunners 2 is understand these types of differences and choosing a load out of towers that suits your play style.

The new towers are indeed awesome but the game really shines with an introduction of trenches and bridges. The way these areas on the map work is pretty simple; the terrain will either rise up or dip down and create a bridge or a trench on the grid for Fieldrunners to use. Towers cannot be placed on either raised or lowered ground. This means finding the best way to funnel enemies into these areas is key since a small path is pretty much decided for you.

The genius comes in with how sparingly and cleverly placed these paths are. There is never an obvious method of how you are “supposed” to lay you towers down in order to direct the enemies. The possibilities are endless and allow for more ridiculous mazes. These sections of terrain also create new logical places for crowd control towers like the Glue Tower or Pyro Tower. It is extremely satisfying to force a Fieldrunner to run over a bridge so he can run in a circle around your Flame Tower just to run along on fire under that same bridge and continue on his doomed mission. There are so many new ideas in Fieldrunners 2 that create exciting different game play.

Not to mention the new game modes such a time trial and more. Fieldrunners 2 is packed with even more charm, deviously simple and fun game play than the original game. This is an obvious recommend for any fan of Tower Defense & even casual gaming fans have a lot that they can latch onto with Fieldrunners 2. All that and a ton of charm that make it a mobile must have.