Rednecks vs. Aliens Review

Developer Dennis Zdonov spins the wheel of humorous Vs. pairings, and settles on good ol' country boys and rowdy Reticulans. The game is Rednecks vs. Aliens, a middling take on the tower defense genre that suffers from too much button mashing and too little strategy.

In Rednecks vs. Aliens, your cozy farmstead is being invaded by hordes of green-skinned, big-eyed aliens. As they approach, you must select a weapon and start tapping. Every time you tap, you fire a shot. Keep tapping to keep shooting, and keep shooting to keep the aliens at bay.

To assist you in your defense, you can buy new weapons and house upgrades between levels. In the beginning, these seem prohibitively expensive -- it will be level 10 before you can really afford anything new -- but very quickly you will be able to afford a new upgrade every level.

Very quickly, I found myself comparing this game to two other, better TD games: Plants vs. Zombies and Zombie Smash. Whereas both of those games offer strategic options -- which plants do I bring with me? Which weapons do I deploy? Which targets take priority? -- Rednecks vs. Aliens offers little. It is all automatic button-mashing on every level. You tap, then tap, then tap some more, as fast as you can, while your purchased defenses fire off automatically. Each round is over pretty quickly, so there's a bit of fun in the moment; but it all becomes repetitive after a few levels.

The only real strategic choice comes in buying house and weapon upgrades. Once they're bought, though, they're permanent, automatic, and unsellable, so if you've made poor buying choices, you're stuck. For example, in my first game I failed to buy and upgrade my surface-to-air missile sufficiently; and by about Level 22 I was fighting a losing battle against flying saucers. I had to start again, because there was no way to, say, sell my electric fence (which I didn't need) for more air defense power.

Ultimately, what you get in Rednecks vs. Aliens is frantic and repetitive tap-tap-tapping, along with a little strategic buying. It's not the worst TD game I've ever played, but it's not the best, either. It may appeal to hardcore fans of the genre looking for another game to add to the list, but more casual players will find much better TD games at the same price point.