Don't let the downloadable size or cheerful presentation fool you.
Downloadable Game of the Week
Dungeon Defenders
For: Playstation 3 (via PlayStation Network), Xbox 360 (via Xbox Live Arcade), Windows PC
From: Trendy Entertainment/D3Publisher Of America
Rating: Everyone 10+ (alcohol reference, animated blood, fantasy violence)
Price: $US15
Dungeon Defenders is a fiendishly deep blend of dungeon crawling, role playing and tower defence, and if you engage this journey of potentially hundreds of hours, you'd best begin with the tutorial.
Superficially, Defenders follows the action-meets-tower defence blueprint: At the start of a level, you (and up to three friends via drop-in/drop-out online/offline co-op) strategically decorate your elaborate surroundings with traps, and when you give the green light and enemies rush in from all sides, you're free to run around and get your hands and weapons dirty fighting anybody who dodges the reach of those traps.
Simple, right?
Sure - until you realise how different Defenders' four playable classes are.
Each comes with separate weapons, traps, attribute stats, pets and abilities - all upgradable and customisable - and the inventory and role-playing interfaces more closely match that of a Elder Scrolls game than its downloadable equivalent.
Consequently, while Defenders holds up as a single-player game, it absolutely sings as a multiplayer experience.
With four people co-ordinating an attack while each controls a different class and solves unique problems with unique abilities, Defenders resembles a real-time strategy game in which players control every unit directly.
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