With the advent of smaller, more mobile, games as well as cheaper development kits, independent games are having a bit of a renaissance.

Orcs Must Die! 2 is, unsurprisingly. the follow up to Orcs Must Die! The concept is not original, being a variation on the capture the castle/tower defence game. So, you have an old concept, what are you going to do with it?

In the case of Robot Entertainment what you do is wrap it in sumptuous graphics, which will still work on a mid-priced laptop, inject a large element of humour and make the game play frustrating enough that you come back to it over and over, but simple enough so that there is no long learning curve.

The basic game play is simple enough, Orcs pour through a tunnel intent on getting to the other end and you, as the goofy hero, have a combination of traps and weapons with which to stop them. Simple premise, enjoyably frustrating game play.

You play in the 3rd person and have a number of options, which are limited at the beginning of the game, to lay traps. As the game progresses you get the option of buying more interesting ways of killing the Orcs and part of the fun is seeing the various ways you can dice and dismember the little devils. Kill them and you get money, sometimes enough to buy more traps during game play, but you also gain skulls which you use to buy different traps.

The control system is okay, with a combination of keyboard and mouse, but I bought a gamepad, which made control much better and the experience a whole lot more fun.

The silliness extends itself to both the graphics, which are presented in a pseudo-cartoon style, and the dying grunts of the Orcs, plus the inane ramblings of you muscle-bound avatar. The soundtrack is so so, not enough to turn it off, but I probably wouldn’t want to listen to it outside the confines of the game.

Each level has a certain randomness regarding difficulty, but you get a couple of goes at each, so it’s pitched pretty well, making you come back to play again.

It’s nice to see independents putting out small but perfectly crafted games at a reasonable price; we await Orcs Must Die 3.

7

Charles Packer