Keep your virtual computer virus free with VirusWars on Facebook

Just today, the folks at BitDefender launched a computer themed tower-defense title on Facebook called VirusWars. The game has a clever premise - you are in charge of protecting the inner workings of your computer system. It's up to you to place defense systems on your motherboard and other various computer hardware in order to keep out all manner of nasty things, from malware and spyware to viruses and even spam.

The game's tower defense layout will be incredibly familiar to those who have played even one other game in the genre. You'll be allowed to choose a level set to start on, with each level giving you a different amount of coins to start with. You'll be able to spend those coins on defensive items, including multiple varieties of turret. These turrets come in different colors and with different stats, with the more powerful options obviously costing more coins to place. That is, you'll be able to choose from a whole host of different stat configurations, from those turrets that shoot fast, but are weak, to those that shoot slowly, but can dominate most anything that enters their path.

Meet us behind the break to see how you'll be able to put your strategy to use to defeat the evil viruses.
You'll be able to see the standard path that all enemies will walk down when you are placing your defensive units. If you can afford it, you'd of course want to place multiple units along each path, in positions where they will be able to reach the most number of viruses before they can attack your system's "health." Once you believe you're ready to face enemies, you can click on the "Send Wave" button to set the gameplay into action.

From here, you can either pause the action, or you can speed it up, for times when you know you'll win and don't need to watch things play out. The game doesn't pause if you open up the shop, but you are allowed to do so and to place new defensive units on the fly. For each enemy you defeat, you'll earn a small amount of coins, which can then be spent to either upgrade your current units to become more powerful, or simply buy additional units from the store.

For each virus that escapes your defenses, and makes it to the "core," you'll lose a bit of health. Depending on the level pack you're playing, you may have to take on 50 waves or more before you've competed the round. You'll be able to track your overall score for a particular level by keeping an eye on the neighbor bar at the bottom of the screen. You can also check out your individual stats (how many kills you've made in total across all of the five current levels), and your team stats (all users choose from one of four teams to join) in order to make sure that you're doing your part in the group.

All told, VirusWars appears to be a pretty solid, if a bit shallow take on the tower defense genre. With a small gameplay area, it's unlikely that most users would get overwhelmed with the placement of their defenses, opening this game up to many more players - especially those that may not be seasoned veterans with the gameplay formula.