| Orcs Must Die! 2 Video Game |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Games | |
| Written by Steven Hill | |
| Tuesday, 02 October 2012 | |
Orcs Must Die! 2 Video Game Review
Manufacturer: Robot Entertainment Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been self-supplied. Orcs Must Die! 2 is the sequel to - you guessed it - Orcs Must Die!. Once again, you take up the mantle of the War Mage in his quest to gib as many orcs in as many hilarious ways as possible in this third person action game. There are some spoilers in this review with regard to the first game's story. If you haven't yet played the first game... Go do it! At its heart, OMD2 (as it will be called for the remainder of the review), is a tower defense game. You have points called Rifts. Your goal is to use whatever means are at your disposal to prevent hordes of orcs and other baddies into these Rifts.
The story goes thusly: after closing the Rifts that allow magic into the world, things start going wrong. People experience drought and sickness where there was none before. Then, the War Mage realizes that magic is somehow slowly returning. But along with magic comes the orc hordes threatening to destroy all humanity. The War Mage must resume his endless quest to defend the Rifts from the monsters, with help from an unexpected quarter.
Game Mechanics: Traps, Traps, and More Traps!Rest assured, your means for killing monsters are many and varied. You have the War Mage himself, for instance. He can be equipped with various weapons, from a blunderbuss shotgun, to a rapid-fire cross, to a blade staff, amongst many other things. These work relatively simply: if it's a melee weapon, get in close and click the monster until it's dead. If it's a ranged weapon: put targeting reticule over the monster and click it until it's dead. Of course, these weapons also have alternative functions. Is your chain lightning ring not hitting enough targets? Click the right mouse button and create a lightning storm that fries everything that walks underneath.
However, the meat of the game really lies in the trap system. If you don't buy any DLC, you have access to over 30 different traps. These vary in type as well; some are physics based, such as the pusher or flinger. These traps are great for sending baddies screaming to their deaths in molten lava or acid. If you want to get clever, you can use these traps to push them into different ones. My favourite combination is the pusher and grinder combo. Then there are damage traps. There are so many of these, you'll probably spend a lot of your time in the game agonizing which ones you want to choose (you cannot have everything at once; you are allotted a specific number of traps and weapons on each level). These are often situational. Are there many low ceilings? Then maybe you'd like the swinging mace, or the pounder. Are there lots of Ice Ogres on their way to stun you with their huge clubs? Grab up the flame trap and grill up those big, ugly ogres until they are extremely well-done. Not only is there a dizzying array of traps, but the developers have replaced the Weaver upgrade system from the first game with a startling customization system. Each trap and weapon gets a basic damage upgrade of three purchasable levels. On top of that, there are "Unique" and "Special" upgrades to adopt the traps even more to your preferred play style. However, you may only have one Unique upgrade per trap. Do you want your flingers to reset faster, or to have a chance to hurl larger enemies? Choices, choices. "Purchasable," you say? Why yes. You might consider this a new metagame on top of the regular one. Where in the first game you spent coins earned while completing a level on upgrades that could be used only in that level, OMD2 does it differently. You earn skulls. The game rewards you with these for completing various tasks, from beating a level (for which you are given 1-5 skulls depending on your proficiency) to picking up ones randomly and generously donated by orcs whose heads you recently removed.
Traps can be unlocked early (usually for about 14 of these skulls) and their upgrades can be purchased using only this in-game currency. Veterans of the first game may grumble about this change, particularly for physics traps. The Steel Weaver in the first game allowed you to upgrade physics traps to reset quickly, do more damage, and fling the heaviest of enemies. In OMD2, you must choose between either a fast reset, or a chance to fling the big guys. A valid complaint, but a more than fair trade-off. OMD2 provides a dizzying array of customization to your game that simply wasn't possible in the original.
Orcs (and other things) You Must Make Die!If OMD2 ups the customization, it also ups the ante on the difficulty. It still retains all the difficult levels from the first, all the way up to Nightmare mode, but I don't believe that's where the challenge lies. No, it's definitely in the variety of new monsters.
Despite the game's name, it's not only orcs that have to do all the dying. You will face down kobolds, ogres (including Frost, Fire, and Armored) and gnolls (some of whom will now hurl grenades at you) as well as various flying things that shoot at you. However, these are all baddies you'll remember from the first game. OMD2 features many brand new monsters that add to the challenge. Three types of trolls have arrived to bludgeon you to death: the normal troll, the swamp troll, and the mountain troll. What makes them hard is their large hit-point pools, as well as their ability to regenerate health. If you see one of these guys coming at you, your best bet is to use lightning or fire attacks/traps on them in order to disrupt their regenerative abilities.
For me, the most challenging new additions are the earth elementals. In size, they descend from Earth Lords, then Earth Elementals, then Earthlings. The catch is, as soon as you kill one, it becomes two more of the smaller things. Kill one Earth Lord, get two Earth Elementals in return; kills two Earth Elementals, get four Earthlings.
New Game FeaturesThis challenge is especially evident in the new game mode, Endless. Just like the name sounds, you battle endless waves of enemies on levels you have unlocked while playing through the singleplayer story (or through beating the Endless level preceding the next one). The game throws more and more enemies at you. The more waves you make die, the more skulls you are rewarded. This is harder than it sounds; you find yourself facing a veritable horde of Earth Lords and Mountain Trolls before long, easily overwhelming your best-laid traps. The sequel also introduces a new playable character, perhaps the largest addition to the game not counting multiplayer. If you get tired of the War Mage's witty quips, you can play through all the game modes with the Sorceress (this includes Story Mode). Players of the original will recognize her as the antagonist from the first game. Having lost much of her ability to mind control the orc hordes, she's joined up with the War Mage to try to kill as much of her former horde as possible. She offers a slightly different play-style from the War Mage. She has a few different traps available only to her, such as the Acid Sprayer (which literally melts the flesh from baddie bones). She also has a wand that allows her to mind control one monster at a time, making them fight for, rather than against, you. However, the Sorceress has less health than the War Mage, so players must be a bit more careful to not wade into odds that are too overwhelming.
Skulls are not shared between the two characters. If you buy an upgrade for a trap for the War Mage, it does not automatically upgrade the Sorceress' trap as well (if she has that trap, that is). This adds even more replayability to the game, as to see all the content you must beat it twice using different play styles. With the addition of a new playable character comes another big leap for the franchise: multiplayer. Players can battle with a friend in co-op through the various game modes, including the main story. One player controls the War Mage, while the other plays the Sorceress. You can better synergize your traps and plan the best way to turn the orcs into so much red paste on the floors and walls.
You can also compete on the leaderboards, trying to get the highest score possible on various levels for that coveted #1 spot on the chart. To keep things interesting, the developers have also implemented a challenge of the week system, where all players are forced onto one particular map with a pre-defined list of traps and weapons.
Sound & VisualsGraphics and sounds remain largely the same as from the first game. The cartoony art style lends itself to the light-hearted and humorous tone of the game. Animations look smooth. Traps have a metallic look to them that gives them a meaty weight as they slay your enemies. The game is also not too hard on your computer. If you have a mid-level video card and CPU from the past few years, you should have no problems running OMD2 (albeit on lower settings). It runs smoothly at maxed-out settings on my 560ti, Phenom II X4, 8 GB RAM system.
Sound is one area that really lends the game character. The War Mage is a witty guy, who probably should have seen a child psychologist as a young man to discuss his childish glee at the violence he inflicts. You'll find yourself laughing as you lay down a spike trap at a chokepoint and he says, "It's like catnip, but for orcs!" Another favourite of mine is, "The line forms here, under the swinging mace!" Orcs scream and beg for mercy as you slice-and-dice them, trying to convince you that they are too young to die. The traps themselves make satisfying gory and metal noises as they do your dirty work. The game also features an orchestral soundtrack that swells at the appropriate moment, but you'll probably be too busy cackling in delight at dying orcs to take much notice of it.
Orcs Must Die! 2 Final ThoughtsIn many ways, Orcs Must Die! 2 can be seen as an incremental upgrade on the first game. It takes everything featured in the original and turns these things up to 11 on the dial, while also introducing a number of new features that make it not just an expansion pack. If there is one criticism that can be levelled at the game, it's probably at the AI. Enemies always move along predefined paths, or attack in obvious and predictable ways. Unless the player makes a huge mistake, the only time anything really gets by is if you are overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Given that the game owes much of its design philosophy to tower-defense style games, I see this (lack of) AI as just another part of the game. After playing for a while, you may also feel that the voice clips can be a little too repetitive, as well. 
With the addition of new features like multiplayer, and (at the time of this writing) one DLC pack already out, OMD2 offers a great deal more replayability than its predecessor. The game is also priced for a tight gaming budget on digital retailers like Steam, so if you are looking for a great arcade experience with pleasant visuals and some great dialogue, there really is no excuse not to pick this gem up right away. Pick up two and give the co-op a try. So what do you think of Orcs Must Die! 2?
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Comments
BTW, Good to see games being reviewed on BMR :)