Ah, good old Bloons TD5. This game is....and interesting one to review - mainly as there isn't that much contect. Either way here's what I have to say about it. 

Physical Qualities

Let's start of with the basics. When logging in you're greeted with NinjaKiwi's intro and logo. Pretty standard for their games. Then, you're introduced to a starting screen which has the game's name and a big ol' play button beneath it. The graphics are, again, pretty standard for this part, but nothing special. You're then greeted with a screen in which the main focus is getting you to pay. There's a store for merchandise, pay2win options, neither of which are cheap when clicked on. A annoying tune will slowly hum in the backround - if you like it, because of lazy coding you can't turn it down - only turn it off or on. 

Once you paly a game, you'll relise that you pay2win purchases were mostly wasted. The annoying tune will continue to play, but this time, you also get the sound of all the "bloons" popping and the towers launching their projectiles. Both are extremely annoying especially in later rounds. So, in terms of audio: thumbs down. Graphics? They certainly don't wow you. In some current and newer maps, it is true that they put a lot more detail into them. But they haven't even bothered making old, horrible looking maps any better either. Even though the details on the maps have been improved, that doesn't change the fact that you're staring at a path in the middle of a badly made 2D map - the same as any TD game really. 

The game does, however, invest a few well spent detail points in their towers. You can see by their thumbnails and what they really look like ingame, that a lot of effort has been put into drawring the things. A lot more than in your standard tower defense game, that's for sure. Although, to be fair I have been pretty harsh on it. For a tower defense game most grphics and art work are actually very good, and it seems as though a reasonable amount of time was invested in the audio, but it still pales in  comparision to other games NK and other companys have made. 


Gameplay
This game is like any other tower defense game. Waves of enemys come at you, you build towers to try and defend them, succeed and gain money from killing the enemy and use that to build more towers and upgrade stuff. But this game, does come with a slight diffrence. While the base concept is the same, if fully expands the limits of strategy / tower defense games. First and foremost, even though some towers are the same, what sets this apart from other games is the fourth tier abilites. If you manage to upgrade a tower correctly, you'll see that you get a recharging special ability that can do quite a bit of work. The animations for these things definatly don't lack either. Because of the ever harder getting waves, these do come into normal play quite a lot. 

Furthermore, it does appear as if a bit more though has went into creating the towers. For instance there aren't a lot of TD games in which you can move decide where something shoots, even if that place is totally rediculous - as long as it makes sense to you it's fine. Both the motar tower and the dartling gun are great examples of this. (I am aware of the additional towers added in the steam version, but this is the web version of the game so I won't add them here). What other TD game lets you farm additional money mid game without paying for it with real life cash like this one does? And if they do, do they add the strategy behind it that is needed in Bloons TD5 that let's you farm money but only so long as your defense holds up. Obviously there's no story, just a few fanfictions written by kids, nor are there many controls that need mastering. But the hotkeys certainly are effective.

And yes. I did mention pay2win earlier, but maybe I lied a bit. Even though paying does allow you to win much more easily and quickly, it isn't required. It's just as possible without doing so. 

Replayability
Welp. this is a difficult one to do. I personally have completed all the maps and have gotten all the medals (ik, no life), but people not determined to do it for the awesome points (site based ranking system), probably won't have the same patience to complete them all. If you play it form level 1-85 a few times you get the jist of what you need minimally to defend. But on the other hands, certain harder maps, with diffrent features do propose a challenge to non paying users, making the game suprisingly replayable. 

Hack Power

Suprisingly, this game isn't that fun with hacks - at all. They ruin the point of it. Maybe playing once or twice with an umlimited money hack makes it fun, but after you're tested everything, there really isn't a lot of fun in them. Some of them maybe do make it more fun, but there's a point where it stops. Although, admitedly, with some of the hacks to increase the speed of the game, they might make it more interesting, but I've never tried them yet so I can't really judge. 

Overall Rating
Even though this game is very repetetive, it is still very well made and the variety of diffrent maps make it quite fun. Since SAS4's release however, updates are no longer so constant which is a shame. However, the game is well made and definatly leagues ahead of all other tower defense games. Even though I may have mentioned it earlier, it really doesn't rely on a pay2win concept. It's a fun game so go ahead a check it out, although it's not for everyone :)