Fieldrunners Attack! review
:: FIELD BUMMERSPrice: Free
Version: 3.3.165660
App Reviewed on: iPad Air 2
Graphics/Sound Rating:
User Interface Rating:
Gameplay Rating:
Replay Value Rating:
Overall Rating:
Fieldrunners is one of those names that seems to stick around because it was a quality tower defense game in an earlier time before there were loads and loads of tower defense games on the market. Now, with Fieldrunners Attack!, Subatomic is doing sort of the reverse, by leveraging the Fieldrunners name to enter the overcrowded space of Clash of Clans-type games. The result of this is just about what you'd expect. Fieldrunners Attack! hardly resembles the Fieldrunners of old and instead feels like a transparent cash-in on its name and a popular genre.
Base defense
If you've played any games in the style of Clash of Clans, Fieldrunners Attack! will feel completely familiar. You build a base, complete with defenses and resource-gathering structures while also sending your own troops out to take down other players' bases.
The combat in Fieldrunners Attack! plays out a lot like a real-time strategy game, with players tapping to issue commands to their units. If you're able to destroy a player's base, you reap some bonus resources, and if you fail, you are sent back to your base with some weakened units who will heal back to full over time.
Clash of fields
Beyond visual styling, very little of Fieldrunners Attack! feels like a Fieldrunners game. There aren't really tower defense elements to the game, and when your base gets attacked, you don't even get a chance to participate in the defense.
Instead, the game heavily pushes you through upgrade paths using the tried-and-true approach of making virtually every upgrade and progression in the game a “mission” to complete. These missions could be fun, but most of them are generally just a matter of tapping a button or two and then just waiting for something to happen.
Barren field
This style of game isn't inherently bad, but Fieldrunners Attack! doesn't really add anything to the gameplay formula to make it worth checking out.
As a management game, everything you need to manage is force fed to you such that it requires little thought at all, and the combat doesn't feel particularly good or strategic. This makes the entire experience of Fieldrunners Attack! feel pretty mindless.
The bottom line
Fieldrunners Attack! is a game that is ostensibly about strategic base management and combat, but it fails to deliver on both fronts. Moreover, it doesn't make particularly good use of anything that made Fieldrunners appealing in the first place. Across the board, Fieldrunners Attack! is a very disappointing game.