Garfield's Defense: Attack of the Food Invaders for iOS

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on November 16, 2012

If you're a fan of Garfield, you know that he's a big fan of food, especially lasagna. In Garfield's Defense: Attack of the Food Invaders for iOS, he's charged with defending his beloved lasagna and more from alien food invaders. While the graphics of the game were top-notch, the gameplay itself was awkward and quite boring.

Fans of Garfield will immediately recognize the graphics, which were taken straight from the popular comic. The premise of Garfield's Defense is pretty simple: As Garfield (or, if you choose, one of his friends), you're tasked with guarding a refrigerator full of food from alien invaders.

As you rack up points, characters are unlocked. For example, after completing the first stage, Sheldon was unlocked, along with a brief description that let us know his strengths against the enemy.

Tapping the screen moved Garfield backward and forward. On our first go, we charged ahead and encountered the invaders, which each had a life status bar on top of their head to let us know how close we were to defeating them. As we charged, Garfield started throwing forks at the invaders, but we had no control over his cutlery-throwing skills; all we could do was move backward and forward. And, eventually, we were overtaken by invaders and they got to our fridge full of food.

While playing the game, tips pop up on the screen that are supposed to clue you in on ways to summon friends, such as popping popcorn (confused? It made no sense to us, either). But we really weren't sure of their relevance; for example, following a tip, we summoned Sheldon, but we weren't sure why or what to do with him.

On the main menu, the Options feature lets you turn the sound off and on; there is also an introduction that gives you a little story background. The More Games feature lists more Garfield-related apps that you can download for free. What we would have liked to see was a better explanation for how to play the game and how to use the tips to our advantage. As a fan of Garfield, we really wanted to love Garfield's Defense, but, sadly, there was nothing about it that made us want to come back for more.