Orcs Must Die Review
Orcs Must Die is a medieval 3rd person tower defence game that puts you in the shoes of a smug faced war mage that is left with the task of protecting the Rift Fortresses from Orcs.
You play as the apprentice, A not too bright young chap that loves nothing more than killing Orcs and their allies. Using a selection of weapons and traps your job is to strategically place obstacles on the paths that the enemy will take in order to protect the Rift. You start with a crossbow and a few traps that can be put on either the floor or walls, but as you progress you will unlock more of a variety including better weapons, different traps and allies.
Traps are well thought out and quite funny. Floor spikes, wall arrows, blade walls and steam traps are the names of just a few. Traps are not the only weapon you have in your arsenal! You can place allies such as Archers and melee soldiers and then don’t forget you yourself are a killing machine.
Once traps are put down and the Orcs are invading you will often have to move from one place to another and wipe out a few yourself. Your crossbow is a great weapon that inflicts a reasonable amount of damage and is a great way of slowing down the enemy. Later on in the game you will also be granted access to other weapons such as fire gloves and ice gloves both of which do what you would expect… ie Freeze and kill, burn and incinerate.
Weapons have a secondary fire which does extra damage or stuns the enemy but use with caution. You have a mana bar that goes down during the use of your weapon and in big chunks if you use your secondary fire. Mana regenerates after time but will sometimes leave you standing still panicking whilst the enemies come towards you whilst you wait for the mana to go up.
The game is simple to play but hard to master! Your rift can only allow a certain amount of enemies to enter and if that number reaches zero, its game over and start again. Controls are well placed and simple, placing traps is easy and the objective is obvious. Strategic planning is a must! Place a trap in the wrong place and you will be overrun by groaning dopey Orcs. Stand in the wrong place and the enemy will creep into your rift before you can get there. The games difficulty increases slowly giving you a chance to get used to you surroundings and inventory but you will definitely get caught out at times.
Once each level has been completed you are shown a short video of the apprentice dancing in a cocky manner and then issued skulls. You can earn up to 5 skulls per level and these can be used to modify and upgrade your inventory. Some traps will do more damage or have a faster cool down period and some allies will cost less. The skulls are a great way of keeping the game fresh and new and a godsend during the later levels.
The game looks great and is really fun. A co op mode or even a Vs mode would have worked great but sadly these were not added. There’s loads of re-playability, and a leaderboard to keep you on your toes. I honestly think this game will be loved for a long time and is well worth the msp.
9/10
Review By Wicket2961
