Have you ever wanted to just play the role of God and cause havoc among the inhabitants of the world? Well now is your chance to do so. Babel Rising is a new God-game that has you bringing down terror on the folks of Babylon as they try to complete the Tower of Babel. I am not going to go into a Sunday School lesson for those that may not know the Old Testament Biblical story. You can research it a bit on your own. The general synopsis of the story is that the people of Babylon wanted to build a tower to reach to Heaven. They also wanted to be recognized for this accomplishment so that God would spare the city of Babylon in any future circumstances. Only the opposite happened. God saw the tower as a deterrent from their faith and therefore punished them by messing with the language of the people among other things.

Ok, so there is your short Bible school lesson. I do not think my Sunday School teacher would be very happy with my summary but it gets the job done without boring you too much. So as stated, you will play the role of God and hinder the progress of the tower building by using the elements fire, water, wind and earth. Your overall goal is to keep the tower from ever being completed. You’ll face waves of workers and priests and your job is to make sure they do not contribute to the construction of the tower.

There are various ways of hindering the tower from being built. You can drop boulders on workers heads, burn them in fire, wash them away in a tidal wave or whip them far away in a dust storm. You’ll have 2 elemental powers available to you choosing from the previously mentioned elements. Each element has a projectile style of power as well as an attack that covers a large area. For instance the fire element has fireballs and paths of fire. You choose the power you want by pressing the appropriate button. After using a power it will have to rebuild in mana before you can use it again. Obviously the more powerful attacks take longer to regenerate.

Think of Babel Rising as a tower defense game of sorts. Workers who do not get destroyed will add to the construction of the tower and eventually the tower will be fully built and its game over. So you want to not only kill the workers but use special powers to also destroy the tower itself. You can unleash meteor showers, tidal waves, large rolling boulders and more. That’s up to you and what elements you chose when starting the game. I found it quite comical using the wind element and striking the workers down with lightning.

There is a single player campaign in the game that will have you partake in different scenarios. Each scenarios gives you a specific goal to achieve. For instance, the first level you play gives you the goal of killing 75 workers. Sounds pretty simple huh? It is to start, but those goals get increasingly difficult and there are also 2 difficulty levels to choose from. There is also a Survival mode where you’ll have to last as long as you can against waves of workers and priests. You’ll gain points by destroying towers, priests, workers and you can even build multipliers by linking together massive kill streaks and attacks. There are 3 different towers in the single player campaign and you must unlock them for use in the Survival mode. The towers get more complex with many different entry points for workers.

The multiplayer in the game is great to have but once again we have a game that fails to supply an online multiplayer experience. You’ll play locally in vertical split screen which can be a bit of hindrance trying to see where workers are coming from and getting the full picture of what is happening. There are versus modes which allows players to battle it out for the top score or you can choose to see who outlasts the other. There is also the cooperative mode which in my opinion is the best multiplayer option for this game. You and a partner will work together to keep the tower from being built. Each of you will be supplied with 2 elements of your choice and you then work together with your powers and use what’s best for each situation as it arises. It’s definitely a lot of fun and I do believe some laughs will be produced.

The game can be controlled using either a standard controller or you can choose to use Kinect. I do not like the boxart because with the purple banner it makes the game look like its Kinect only to consumers. That is not the case. Kinect definitely adds a new way to play the game with simple hand motions and body movements to bring hell down upon the people of Babylon. I personally prefer to just play with the controller. I personally preferred the standard controller but it’s nice to have the option to use Kinect if you want to.

When you think about it this game is a bit evil and portrays God as an evil deity if you do not know the story for the Tower of Babylon. For those that do know the story you’ll quickly remember those good ole Sunday School mornings and summer Bible school sessions. Now you get to play the role of God in that situation. This is not a religious game by any means but it does definitely use an interesting story from the Bible. I am sure some folks will just find this offensive for some reason but in all honesty most games are based on fiction. If you do not believe in God or the Bible that does not mean you cannot enjoy this game. You do not need to be a religious person to have a great time with this game. If you are an avid Bible reader then you should definitely enjoy this game for the value of the story that lies behind it.

I enjoy God-games and tower defense games. This game is right up my alley and I absolutely love the art style which holds that cell-shaded effect that seems to make everything so crisp. While it can’t be really considered a tower defense or a tower offense game it holds attributes of both so we’ll just call it a tower destruction game. It’s enjoyable and of course it’s a bit repetitive but so are most tower defense style games. The leaderboards really push you to try and be the most powerful God in the online world. The multiplayer aspects of the game definitely add replay value to the game and the fact that you can play with either the controller or Kinect is a plus. I would definitely recommend checking this title out in the Trial mode at the very least. But I have to say if you like the tower genre then you should grab this one immediately. Some may debate the price for the little that this game offers but I foresee DLC with this title which should add plenty of value. Check it out.