Sev Zero

I've played a lot of tower defense games, and frankly when the tutorial level loaded and the wireframe corridors showed up I wasn't expecting much. Build a tower, start the wave of enemies, the usual. Then I beamed down to shoot at the invading enemies in a third-person view. The graphics shot up to pretty impressive levels, but the gameplay was still regular shooter.

Then I discovered you can pick your beam-down location with the thumbsticks before you land. Your landing does area-of-effect (AOE) damage and stuns enemies for a short time, allowing you to beam down and blast them before they have a chance to counter. Picking your direction before you teleport down makes you more effective since you are already aimed at the enemy.

It wasn't until the levels picked up speed that I really got the hang of what this game is going for - it requires fast reaction and quick crisis management. Most of the enemies will try to run past the towers, but some will attack towers, requiring you to beam down and blast them before you lose a tower. If enemies get through they can mass on the core shield, requiring quick action before they break in. This keeps you on your toes with your attention split between defending your towers and stopping enemies that get past them.

There is little cover and ducking in the shooter portions - instead you'll find yourself teleporting out of the action and moving around the map. This gives you amazing mobility without slowing the action to duck behind anything. There isn't a melee attack option, but hit-and-run is a better strategy with your teleport ability.

If you have a friend nearby, the Air Support app lets them launch missiles, rewind enemies and otherwise help you out. It is impractical to try to play both on your own.

Using a variety of weapons is a good strategy- as you progress your primary weapon and the addons (grenades, airstrike, etc) gain levels for faster reloads and more damage.

This game came with my purchase of the Fire TV and controller. It has good graphics (I would say on par with PlayStation 2) and the controller is very responsive, especially considering that this is primarily a "streaming TV device."

The premise of the game is that earth ran out of energy resources and had to tap dark matter in outer space to continue to survive. Now, aliens are trying to destroy our energy source, and we have to stop them. You do this both by shooting them face to face (like Halo) and by setting up tower defenses via a map.

It has a cool feature that allows an extra person to play with you and help defend earth via an additional (free) app that can be installed on the Kindle Fire. The second person can then help you by deploying additional weapons and attacks against the aliens via a map of the level (they are not actually a character in the game that can shoot guns, it is more of a remote location support type of role).

This game has pretty good graphics, and it responds well to the remote. However, after having played it for a while now, it seems to be missing many features of other similar games from the traditional game systems (such as no multiplayer split screen and limited game play options and levels). If the Fire TV is capable of handling multiplayer games, I hope that this game is updated in the future to include those options.

Considering this is the first major game released by Amazon (that I know of), it is a pretty good display of the potential that this Fire TV system has (up to 4 players/remotes can be used, plus the addition of extra game play via the Kindle Fire). There are endless possibilities for games and scenarios with Fire TV games, and I hope that many more are released soon.

I have been playing this game a lot since I got it, and it is fun and entertaining, since your weapons can be leveled up with use throughout each round. The levels have varying degrees of difficulty that can be adjusted based on your experience, and they take approximately 10 to 15 minutes per level. Read more ›

Let's not let the newness of the game overshadow our judgement of the game. It is the first Amazon Game Studios game, and the prime launch title for the Fire TV. These two things alone are biasing the reviews a touch, in my opinion. There are three main things I look at when judging a game: Story, Gameplay, Graphics.

**Story**
The storyline is very lackluster. Then again, how much story can you create out of a tower defense game? The app game description goes into the premise, so I'll spare those details. The issue is there is no development through the game. There are 15 levels and a message log before each mission. Some of those messages include "Communication Blackout". I don't expect or want elaborate cutscenes - the Fire TV is already short on storage space as it is - but some better story development would be nice.

**Gameplay**
The gameplay is pretty good. I enjoyed playing it. The game is a mix between strategic tower defense and third-person shooter. With, eventually, five towers to build, each with several levels of upgrading, you can change your strategic gameplay style with relative ease. The best part of the tower defense aspect is that you can resell a level 1 tower for the price of building one.

Beyond the tower defense aspect, it is up to you and your weapons to protect the core. The weapons include the standard gun, which can be changed from a powerful slow rifle to a weak rapid machine gun or to a neutral shotgun. The other default "weapon" is the spawn drop. Towers can only be placed in fixed locations and you initiate spawning from those locations. After selecting to spawn to the field, you have some time to maneuver to drop on or near enemies. Spawning deals an area of effect damage, later in the game, instantly killing weaker enemies. Finally, you have the gun attachments. After unlocks, there are five attachments and only three can be equipped per mission. Choose wisely. You can upgrade all of your weapons simply by using them. Experience drives the leveling to grant faster reloads, more damage or a larger clip size.

Now here is my gripe about the gameplay. Unless you make a conscious effort, it can get repetitive very quickly. All 15 levels are set up differently, but it is ultimately the same game. I generally used the same 3 attachments and the same 2-3 towers the whole game. I just explained all the different ways you can plays, so if you start to get bored with the repetition, it is up to you to change how you play it. I also managed to hit a few blips of lag. It was not a frame rate drop, just sluggish reaction to my inputs. I could not trace it back to anything such as a large explosion that manages a large load on the processor, so I chalked it up to a rare fluke. Other than that, the game was fun to play.

**Graphics**
For a little set-top box that was not specifically designed to be a video game console, these graphics are awesome. Do they compare to a PS3 or Xbox 360? Absolutely not. Anybody who thinks they do is only fooling themselves or has never played the other consoles. But I would probably put it on par with the 128-bit era graphics. Those are Gamecube, PS2, Xbox and Dreamcast level graphics. If you are buying a game on graphics alone, I wouldn't call you a gamer. Graphics are complementary to a gameplay and storyline, and Sev Zero's graphics complement the gameplay well.

**Bottom Line**
I got the game for free through a promo when you buy the Fire TV Gaming Controller. It was well worth playing at no monetary cost. I took about 3-4 hours to play the game on normal difficulty. Considering the price of the game is normally $6.99, you are paying about $2/hour for a first play through. There are two other difficulty levels - Hard and Insane - and upon beating each mission, you unlock a specific challenge, such as start with $0 (meaning you can't build towers initially), which introduces replay value. If I did not get it for free, I would probably still shell out the money to get this game. Read more ›