Beat
Star Fox Guard (on Wii U).
This came out alongside Star Fox Zero, but honestly I've been playing this a lot more so far. Mostly because Star Fox Zero feels much more like a co-op game, though.
If you're at all into tower defense stuff, this really feels like the ultimate version of that. By monitoring 12 security cameras at once you gotta check for drones and robots that are trying to sneak into your base.
Select a camera that has a good aim at them, and take them out with the camera-mounted gun. There's a few special cameras, like ones that shoot charged shots, ice beams, or hover above to give you a good vantage point. Would've liked more of those though, flamethrowers, or maybe spike traps to slow bots down or something
This is exactly the type of thing Wii U excels at, with 2 screens for optimal control. This should've been a launch game!
Presentation is alright, a little light on music (the last planet has some cool tunes though!) and some sound effects get pretty repetitive. But the Star Fox layer of paint on top feels convincing. The robots are charming and kinda cute, there's voice acting, cutscenes, boss fights and everything. 100 Levels too, plus theoretically endless ones created online by others.
Plot is dumb in typical Star Fox fashion, but I'm glad I've finished this before Star Fox Zero because it feels like it sets the stage for Zero pretty well by fleshing out the world a little bit.
Haven't tried many of its functions yet, like the level editor, online mode or the Amiibo functionality, but I'm already pretty pleased with this purchase.
Minor gripe:
from the 5 planets only 3 end in bossfights, would've preferred if all 5 did. Also the last boss is a lot easier than the second one, which just doesn't feel right. There's no local multiplayer, but it's surprisingly fun to play this whilst others help check the cameras for incoming robots. Very quickly devolves into frantic yelling: "little dudes on cam 4!", "wait no a big yellow one on 12!", "the shield bot is almost at the core!" etc.
Verdict: the most interesting evolution of the tower defense genre I can think of. A polished package overall that took me 7.5 hours to finish, and there's still quite a dozen extra missions and several modes to go back to.
8/10