Defender (2002 video game)
| Defender | |
|---|---|
 North American box art | |
| Developer(s) | Williams Electronics |
| Publisher(s) | Williams Electronics |
| Director(s) | George Collins |
| Producer(s) | Matthew Candler Christine Thomas |
| Designer(s) | Robert Berger Richard Bisso Jeffery Gardiner Michael Kirkbride |
| Programmer(s) | Brian Hawkins |
| Artist(s) | Miguel Lleras |
| Writer(s) | Robert Berger Michael Kirkbride Sara Margaret Stohl |
| Platform(s) | Nintendo Gamecube, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Game Boy Advance |
| Release | February 2002 |
| Genre(s) | Shoot 'em up |
Defender (Defender: For All Mankind outside North America) is a shoot 'em up video game released in February 2002 for the Nintendo Gamecube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox. It is a remake of the 1981 game of the same name. Featuring three-dimensional (3D) graphics, the game is set on a fictional planet where the player must defeat waves of invading aliens while protecting astronauts.
A separate version of the game was released for the Game Boy Advance. Despite sharing a name, box art and a release date with the console versions, it is a different game.
Gameplay
The player picks up humans, who are in danger from aliens, and brings them to a drop zone for extraction. The enemy landers are attacking them, and will constantly try to pick them up for themselves. Once a human is stolen, the player have a short amount of time to blast the lander and catch the slowly falling human. If the player fails to free the human, they are absorbed into the lander and the lander is transformed into a much more difficult enemy. The enemies are a handful of other alien craft, including some ground units that can turn humans into zombies.
Development
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Reception
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IGN said the game was "pretty short, but it's also a fast, mostly mindless shooter".[1] GameSpot stated that "if you like mission-based space combat simulations such as Wing Commander, and you don't mind the game's defensive focus, Defender does a mostly good job of walking the line between having modern gameplay depth and remaining somewhat faithful to the source material"[2]
Game Boy Advance version
A separate version of the game was released for the Game Boy Advance. It contains a faithful recreation of the original 1981 Defender, and an updated version with digitized sprites and new game modes. It was very poorly received: IGN compared it to the infamous Atari 2600 port of Pac-Man.
References
- ^ http://au.ign.com/articles/2002/11/27/defender?page=3 (accessed 20th February 2015)
- ^ http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/defender-review/1900-2896357/ (accessed 20th February 2015)