'Bar Defender' Review: Throwing Bottles At Cops is Fun!

Bar Defender by Extropia Games is not your typical castle defense game. Because one, it isn’t set in medieval times where you actually defend your ‘castle’. Two, it has a story in it (that’s rare). Three, has a unique concept behind it. And four, its just so frickin’ hilarious.

Your an owner of your bar business. You have put a lot of work building it from the ground up. What would you feel if a powerfull multinational corporation wants to demolish your bar so they can build their establishment on that site? Whoa, there’s no chance on winning there, right? Wrong! Thankfully your the guy who feels enraged and will do anything to protect your business from construction workers, donut-eating police, riot squads and everything the corporation want to deploy to put you down. There are bosses in the game which I think is so funny including a bulldozer, a police car with a giant donut inside the compartment, and a tight squad formation which may seem impenetrable. You collect trophies based on what enemy type you have defeated. It’s always nice to collect things!

They say that a true warrior uses weapons to whatever is on site. And for you that means using bottles of wines and beers. There are various types of bottles that differ from strength and area of effectiveness. Say, the beer bottles, they unlimited but takes several hits before you can take out an enemy. But when you use a barrel, it can take out a group of enemies instantly thanks to its weight and large area of effectiveness. You can upgrade your bottles to improve them with the money you earn after each waves. The control is very easy. To throw bottles at enemies, Just hold a finger on the screen and you’ll see a trajectory indicator. Drag it so you can adjust the height and strength of the throw. It is very easy to pick up and needs no learning curve at all.

There’s no life indicator here, instead they used morale. Once your your morale is gone, you’re defeated and all you can do is run away to your mom and leave your bar behind. Just like the beverages, You morale can be upgraded. you can boost it up and will have an effect to your earnings.

I am very impressed with the game’s visuals. It’s like I am watching a late-night adult cartoon when I play Bar Defender. Just take a look at the screenshots and see for yourself how beautifully they are. What adds to the charm of this game is the animation. You can see subtle animations from the enemies like picking up their helmets from the ground and such. As the day passes by, you can also see the environment changing. At first you’ll see some trees here and there but after sometime they will be gone and see a construction site instead. It’s subtle but it’s nice that they put little details to the game. Music is nice but a litlte too low on the volume. A slider to adjust would be a nice addition.

It’s such a bummer that you can’t save a highscore for this game. Not even an online highscore. But the developer has promised this for future updates, so we’ll have to keep an eye for it.

Extropia Games really did set a new level of fun to the genre with Bar Defender. I enjoyed it most of the time and some issues I may have will be resolved in future updates. Overall, this game is one of the funniest games I played and its quite enjoying seeing the police drop their donuts and just run away from you because of your mad bottle-throwing skills. This game is funny in every way. I would recommend it especially with its bargain price of 99 cents.

4 out of 5

Bar Defender on the App Store.