Trenched is a downloadable game in the same vein of “Toy Soldiers” in that the basic premise is a castle defense game. Here, “castle defense” means swarms of enemies are coming at your base, and you need to pick them off before they can destroy it.
Simple premise, mimicked a lot. So the real trick is building around that premise in an interesting way. “Toy Soldiers” did a good job by creating a “toy” environment that was a little creepy, a little hokey and quite amount of fun. The only downside is that most of the weapons you use—turrets, flame throwers, etc.—are stationary. Once in awhile, you could take control of a plane or a tank, but they didn't have the best controls.
Trenched fixes this problem by giving you a mech. A big, solid mech that controls well and lets you customize its weapons. On top of that, you're expected to defend your home base by deploying a variety of machine gun turrets, anti-aircraft turrets and other weapons to stop the oncoming hordes of alien-like creatures. But while you're doing that, you get to wander around each level in your mech, taking full control of the situation at hand. So if you want to go out and try to kill a bunch of enemies, well then just equip some nasty guns and go do it. But if you want to sit back and establish a perimeter with your stationary guns, then you can do that, too. It's cool.
Really cool. The only downside is that the game's a little short. Still, there's some good incentive to replay it, and you can invite friends to play it, too. On top of that, the story and design is nice: it's the 40's, some crazy transmission turned some Russian guy into a total whacked-out jerk who controls alien-looking creatures, and it's your job to stop him.
With your mech.
