Hypercharge: Unboxed Review

It’s been far too long since I last played a good tower defense hybrid. Hypercharge has certainly piqued my interest in this niche genre again, though the game calling itself “tower defense” is a little misleading. Tower building is the least important and least satisfying part of the game. The thing is, you’re very limited as to where you can place towers. The more useful and interesting towers cost too much money and use up battery power that’s better saved for your cores’ shields. And towers are easily destroyed by mobs, thus making you feel like you should have splurged on weapon upgrades instead. There’s even one level that has no tower placement whatsoever, turning Hypercharge into the first-person shooter that it ultimately is.

When viewed as an FPS platformer with very light TD elements, though, Hypercharge is pretty fun. The toy theme alone is absolutely charming. I really enjoyed exploring the house-themed levels, uncovering knock-off toy packages, and figuring out how to find/reach those special collectible medallions. If the game had more levels, I’d still be playing it today. I’m just not into redoing the same levels for a perfect score, especially since later levels throw in so many enemies that shoot back at you. Again, the game is totally a shooter trying to win you over with the promise of tower building. So if you’re a TD-or-bust kind of gamer, you’ll probably feel a bit swindled. But if you also enjoy shooting and platforming and co-op and ’90s toys, there’s plenty more to like about the game.

Reviewer

Clark
I love gaming so much, I wrote a book about it.

Published by

Clark

I love gaming so much, I wrote a book about it.