Game play in PixelJunk Monsters borrows similarities from various tower defense titles. The objective is to build defense towers along the enemies’ path to keep them from reaching the base. Several small creatures dwell at the base. For each enemy that survives the defense towers and reaches the hut, one creature is killed. If all creatures are wiped out, the level is failed.

I stumbled upon the demo for PixelJunk Monsters one night while downloading random demos for the PS3, and to be honest it sat unplayed and uninstalled for sometime. Then the other night I decided to give it a shot and discoved a gem. Well, calling it a gem may be a little over the top for a tower defense game considering the hundreds of them that exist.

The demo allows for you to play the tutorial stage as well as the first “easy path” stage, and that’s all it took before I became hooked, broke down, and spent the $9.99 for the full version. The game provides many colorful maps and requires a heavy concentration on strategy. This is not a tower defense game you will get through by just dumb luck. As you begin the game (I continued from the demo) you have 4 base towers (arrows, cannon, anti-air gun, and the ice tower) and there are 5 other towers that you can unlock.

The games difficulty increases greatly with each stage so expect to lose alot of the little creatures at first. Also the one disappointment I have had so far is that when you work to unlock the special towers that you must re-unlock them on each level…every time you play that level. This can be quite the pain but at the same time if you started each level with the high powered towers it wouldn’t be much of a challenge.

The game also includes a co-op as well as challenges. If you own a PS3 and like strategy based games that you won’t beat in a weekend then I would highly recommend to check out PixelJunk Monsters (Available on the PlayStation Network).