Bloons TD 6

One of the best long-standing Tower Defense games out there. On the surface it may seem like a silly bloons game (and it can be at times cosmetically), but it has plenty of strategy, build diversity, and well incorporated challenge spread across difficulties. Plus, really great long-term support from Ninja Kiwi. The weekly challenges, team-based modes, and continued single player support sets a precedent for the rest of the competition. Easily recommend this game to both newcomers of the genre and seasoned players all the same.

Bloons TD 6 is a tower defense game that starts with, “Haha, funny monkey pops balloons,” and eventually turns into a full-scale military operation involving aircraft carriers, nuclear weapons, wizards, time manipulation, and a monkey who apparently has enough money to fund an entire country. At first, everything seems peaceful. You place a dart monkey. It pops some balloons. You upgrade it. More balloons show up. You upgrade it again. Suddenly you're investing your entire economy into a monkey with a gun because apparently that's the best use of taxpayer money. The progression is ridiculously satisfying. Watching your towers go from throwing darts at balloons to becoming completely absurd machines of destruction never gets old. Eventually the screen is covered in explosions, lasers, missiles, fire, and enough popping sounds to make you question whether your computer is about to achieve sentience. And then there's the MOABs. You can spend twenty rounds building what you believe to be an impenetrable defense, feeling like a strategic genius. Then a giant blue blimp shows up. You panic. You start selling towers. You buy something you can't afford. You activate every ability at once. Your screen becomes a fireworks display. You survive. You breathe a sigh of relief. Then the next round starts. The game also has an impressive ability to turn you into a financial criminal. Banana Farms become less of a tower and more of an investment portfolio. Before long, you're staring at your economy thinking about whether you can squeeze another $300 out of a farm while a horde of balloons is actively approaching your defenses. And somehow, you convince yourself that yes, you absolutely can. The variety is what keeps the game from getting stale. There are so many towers, upgrades, heroes, maps, modes, and strategies that you can spend an embarrassing amount of time experimenting with different combinations. You can play seriously and optimize every placement. Or you can put down a bunch of monkeys and hope for the best. Both are valid strategies. The real enemy, however, isn't the Bloons. It's your own greed. You could easily end the round safely. But there's an upgrade you really want. So you wait. Just a few more seconds. Just enough money for that upgrade. The Bloons get through. You lose. You stare at the defeat screen thinking, “I knew that was going to happen.” And then you immediately start another game. Bloons TD 6 is colorful, ridiculous, surprisingly deep, and dangerously addictive. It's the perfect game to play for twenty minutes before realizing you've been playing for four hours. 10/10. Popped balloons so hard I developed an economic dependency on banana farms.

Very fun game but my friends keep spamming useless monkeys. This game will drive you mentally insane if you try to blackborder an expert map.

Bloons TD 6 is one of those games that I just kept playing until I suddenly realized I had put an absurd number of hours into it. I have practically all the Black Borders for the maps in solo, have done a lot of stuff in co-op, and I still have a little left to finish everything. After that, I’ll probably stop going after new maps, because at that point I’ll have done enough. What I like most about the game is how easy it is to just open it up and play. I don’t have a fixed strat or anything like that. I just do whatever seems like the best option at the time, use pretty much any hero if they’re useful, and build the run as it goes. Some of the most fun games I remember were on Glacial Trail and Dark Dungeons, which are maps that take a little more work to figure out. I also really like Freeplay. My highest was Round 275, when I eventually stopped because I got bored. I could have gone much further, but at some point there isn’t much fun left in just watching the game continue. Even so, I really like having the option to just let the monkeys do their thing and see how far they can go. Bosses are also really fun, especially when one shows up on an Expert map. That’s when things really start getting more interesting, because you actually have to think about what you’re going to do, and I think it’s one of the best parts of the game when I’m in the mood for something more difficult. Lich is probably my favorite Boss. Odyssey is also a really nice way to change things up a little, and it’s a mode I enjoy quite a bit. As for Contested Territory, I think I’m pretty damn good at it. I don’t necessarily try to get every medal or stay in every competition until the very end, because that starts demanding more time than I’m willing to put into it, but I’ve gotten some results that made me pretty proud. Finishing in second and even first place by myself was really cool. I also have a ridiculous amount of stuff accumulated in the shop. The He-Man skins are really cool and are probably some of my favorite things I have in there. DLC, on the other hand, has never interested me that much, so it doesn’t make much difference to me. The one thing I’ve always kind of neglected is 100% completion. I really like the game, but whenever I think about doing absolutely everything, I immediately feel incredibly lazy. Now I’m finally going after it. I still have the newer maps to do and a few CHIMPS runs that I left behind, which at the time were around three. I’m also going to finish what’s left in co-op, and after getting Black Borders on all the current maps — or maybe not, lol — I think I’ll finally stop adding new maps to my goals. In the end, BTD6 is simply a game I enjoy playing. I don’t need to be trying to accomplish something specific every time I open it. Sometimes I want to do a Boss, sometimes play an Odyssey, sometimes try something in Contested Territory, and sometimes I just want to jump into Freeplay and let the game keep going. After everything I’ve already done, I still have things left to finish and I still keep having fun with it. I think that already says quite a lot about how much I like this game.