Fans of casual games might recognize this one. Having found its way to the top of the App Store charts last week, we came across the OpenFeint enabled iPad title Tesla Wars (also on the iPhone) from Pavel Tarabrin.

A combination of tower defense and Storm the House style games, Tesla Wars is a simple app that gives users the ability to deep fry hordes of ravenous stick figures with the power of lightning. The game also has elements of both strategy and twitch reaction, as users vainly attempt to defend themselves against an ever growing onslaught.

The goal of the game is simple enough. Players control a single tesla tower and fence at the center of the map. From both sides, waves of enemies will charge the defenses and attempt to bring it down. With each level, these waves become more difficult and it is up to the player to live for as long as possible.

The controls are easy enough, as merely tapping on an approaching enemy will zap him with a massive jolt of electricity. However, one zap only knocks him down, and the resilient little fellow will quickly get back up and charge again. In order to kill them, users will have to hold their finger down until they explode into a gruesome display of sticky body parts. Truth be told, it really is quite gratifying.

Here’s the catch: The longer one’s finger is held down, the more energy is drawn from the tesla tower. It does regenerate slowly, but users must still be aware of how much they have as the only time to refill it fully is at the end of a level.

This is where strategy comes into play. Before starting a new level, players earn money based on how many kills they got in the previous one (as well as from bonuses like not taking any damage). This income is then used to not only repair an damage or lost energy, but also purchase and upgrade both the tower and powerful special abilities. These include increased damage, health, and energy regeneration for the tower as well as actively used abilities such as mines, air strikes, or lightning storms. There are also passive bonuses such as shooting double lightning or chaining lightning strikes from one target to another.

Without going into the specific abilities of each power, we’ll just say that each is very strong. However, users must actively pause the game, select a power, then target where it strikes. In the case of the mines or air strike, they will target where the mines/bombs are placed, while the lightning storm will simply go off in one big explosion, hitting everything. Once an ability is used, though, it must recharge, with the more powerful ones taking longer, making timing very important.

Interesting as they are, special abilities are the first complaint to be had with Tesla Wars. The fact that one has to pause the game to use an ability creates a very unnatural and awkward break in game flow. Additionally, one has to pause it again to check on if it is ready. Never does it appear while defending. Part of the fun is the chaos and fast pace, but to just bring everything to a screeching halt doesn’t feel right.

On the positive side, it is pretty gratifying to take out the hordes of enemies. Beyond exploding, sometimes you will do enough damage to leave them crawling toward or away from you. Sometimes you will just blow up their top or bottom half, leaving the other half running away (or, in some cases, still trying to kill you). Moreover, there is such a wide variety of enemies — kamikazes carrying explosives, lightsaber swordsmen, jet pack riders — that there’s plenty of challenge in figuring out on who to blow up first.

Unfortunately, this is where controls work against Tesla Wars a second time. Since you have to hold your finger down to target and kill the baddies, half the time, the carnage is covered up. The enemies are just that small. It’s less prevalent when there are lots of enemies on screen, and far less annoying than pausing the game to activate specials, but it does take away from the experience.

Though there are some control issues, the game’s unlimited play — one plays until they are defeated — does give it a great deal of longevity. Additionally, its OpenFeint integration makes that potential length even longer. There aren’t a whole lot of leaderboards to compete in (only three, based on the difficulty levels), but there are a ton of shareable achievements.

Overall, Tesla Wars is a fairly fun game with some satisfying ways to slay thousands of faceless stick figures. With an ever increasing difficulty, it’s a title that comes with a well placed difficulty curve and should appeal to many tower defense or Storm the House fans. All the same, the controls do feel a bit ill thought out as the holding down of one’s finger often covers up the action and the pausing to use specials destroys the fast game flow. Regardless, the game did make it to the top of the App Store lists once, so it’s obviously a complaint that many are looking past.

Christopher Mack Read more: Inside Social Games