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Tyler Martin
United Kingdom
London
Sha la la la la la laaaaaaaa
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You play Lock, an orphan boy who lives in a seaside village with his Grampa and little sister, Emi. Their coastline tranquillity is shattered one day when Isiah, an injured Archineer, limps into town.
Eh? What the hell is an Archineer?
Um, well they are a sort of mystical cross between an Architect and an Engineer that can build and maintain towering defences at speed using Source.
Source? You mean Force right?
Nope Source, a weird flickery blue flame thing that comes out of wells. It sounds odd but just go with me.
So yeah Isiah was injured after he and Kingdom Force.
Who?
Kingdom Force. You know? The brave knights that defend the realm that Lock lives in
Oh right.
So Isiah and some men of Kingdom Force were attacked by some Clockworks who were trying to take a Source well.
Sorry me again.Clockworks. Are they the bad guys.
Yes, you’re getting better at this. The mysterious and evil Lord Agony leads the clockwork army, a never ending brigade of mechanical soldiers that are animated by the power of Source. The clockworks come in various forms from hammer wielding smashers to magic users to healers. Lord Agony uses his automaton minions to try and control all the Source in the land and gain ultimate power.
Ooo he does sound evil doesn’t he.
Damn right. And Lock in trying to help Isiah not only gets embroiled in this conflict but Emi goes missing. So Lock’s quest not only becomes one of saving his country but of rescuing his sister.
Man that story sounds like a pretty lame version of Star Wars.
Yeah it does but surprisingly as the game progresses the story gets a lot more complicated, throwing in some interesting twists and turns that sees Lock fight on both sides and the ending is pretty downbeat (until they spoil it)
So what exactly do you do in the game?
Good question. Well the essence of the game is Tower Defence. Lock is given a target to protect and then a building phase begins. This phase has a strict time limit in which Lock must erect walls, turrets and several other types of defences. Each type of building uses up a set amount of Source. Once your Source is depleted no more building can take place. Once the time limit has expired the attack phase begins, again under a strict time limit (luckily Clockworks can only be powered by Source for a small amount of time, collapsing in a useless heap once this period has passed - usually 3 minutes). These two sections rotate several times within any given campaign
So far so formulaic.
Blimey, you’re pessimistic. There are a few things that separate Lock’s Quest from the myriad of other Tower Defence Games. First up is Locks ability to move about the game screen at will. Once out an about he can attack the clockworks with his own hand to hand powers or start to mend damaged defenses on the fly. Each of these skills require a little dextrous stylus tapping to pull off successfully. So even once the enemy army starts to advance you never sit back and just see how well you planned your defences. You are always involved in the action and you often find yourself on the brink of failure, anxiously tapping away as you watch the last ten seconds tick away, giving a huge sigh of relief as all the clockworks crumble as it reaches zero. Some of the most frantic battles see lock defending several installations at once, rushing back and forth across the land as the main body of attack shifts from one to the other.
Sounds quite intense.
It can be but it can also be hugely frustrating. The control system can be wildly inaccurate at times. The D-Pad is used to move the camera around the land and the stylus is used to move Lock by tapping on to the areas you wish him to go to or interact with. However you cannot rotate the camera so when a mass of clockworks is attacking a side wall it can be a real tricky time trying to get Lock to attack one type in particular and he just ends up running about aimlessly. It is even more frustrating when you can’t find the sweet spot that will latch him onto a certain wall in order to repair it only to see it destroyed before your eyes.
Man I can see how enraging that must be. Does anything else grate?
Yes, the occasional need to grind for Source.
What? Is there some kind of weird dance hall where people pay Source for a little bit of bump and grind.
No you fool. Once you reach Antonia, the capital city, you get the ability to man a defence tower which turns the game into a sort of one screen shoot em up. As the clockwork wave pops onto screen you must fire cannonballs from the turret judging trajectory in order to hit the oncoming foes. Although this helps to add variety to the game these sections are pretty simplistic and never present any sort of challenge. Their only purpose is to give you a way of generating some extra Source before heading out into the main story again. And in some cases it is a necessity as the amount of Source you start certain campaigns with is paltry. This all wouldn’t be so bad if manning the towers was a short diversion or more engaging but each time you choose to do it takes about 10 minutes, time which just seems to drag. Knowing that you will most likely to have to do it a couple of times in succession to have a decent amount of starting Source just feels like a chore.
Wow this is starting to sound bad should I just avoid the game altogether.
No not at all. These really are small quibbles, more annoyances than game breakers. The majority of the game is fun and well paced with new weapons slowly introduced throughout the whole game meaning that there are always new toys to play with.
Like teddy bears and railway sets.
Sigh you really are an idiot aren’t you... Let me explain a little more in easy terms so even you understand. You start the game with the ability to build wooden walls and a basic turret. As the game progresses different people will teach you knew skills such as building stone and iron walls - more expensive but stronger - and collecting bits of fallen clockworks will grant you the ability to create new types of turrets, such as poison guns and flak canons. You will also learn how to build traps and helpers. Traps are placed on the ground and take effect on any clockworks that pass over them. These can be extremely useful, especially the freeze trap, but only last for one round of battle. Helpers are walled sections with robot type workers on that affect the walls and turrets around them. These range from Healers, who fix nearby damaged walls to Effect boosters who up the damage dealt by poison guns and traps. By the end of the game you have to juggle quite a wide armament tailoring it to the specific types of enemy that are attacking in any given campaign.
Lock himself also powers up during the course of the game learning new special abilities and different hand to hand combat styles that are fun to experiment with.
So no teddy bears in sight then.
Ummm. Well truthfully there is one but it has absolutely nothing to do with game play.
Shame. I won’t have anything cute to look at.
Not at all. The graphics serve that purpose and are very good indeed in a cartoony SD kind of way. The different clockworks are well designed and easy to differentiate in battle and Lock is a suitably be-quiffed hero who wouldn’t look out of place in a Final Fantasy or Dragonball game. The only let down is the cut scene version of Emi who just looks ill and weird.
Well colour me intrigued I might just go and give it a go.
I think you should. Its structure and feel reminded me a bit of Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords. Both try to take well worn genres in new directions using RPG elements (world map, character progression etc) creating something unique and interesting. Puzzle Quest is a better game than Lock’s Quest but 5th Cell’s effort is still a worthy and enjoyable strategy title. An added boon is that it is fairly easy to pick up for a relatively cheap price, it’s currently about £10 on Amazon. Yes it has a few frustrating aspects but for that price this is definitely worth a look at.
 
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I enjoy the style of your reviews, always a good read!
Sounds similar to the Skibi Tower Defense level in Warcraft III. You built towers but also had a guy who could run around and do things. Mini-games as well.
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Tyler Martin
United Kingdom
London
Sha la la la la la laaaaaaaa
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Thanks for the kind words Kurtis.
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Chewtron Volbacca
United States
Greensboro
North Carolina
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I've had this game on my watch list for a while. This touched on all the things I was wondering about. Thanks for the review!
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Proud Father and Diabetic Underachiever
United States
State College
Pennsylvania
Grata
Bastard of Internet Ridicule
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Always a pleasure to see the expression "no you fool" in a video game review.
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Posted Sun Jul 17, 2011 8:10 pm
