Derek "DSmooth" Nolan has been playing a whole bunch of Robot Entertainment's Orcs Must Die! over the past week. Read on to see his full thoughts on today's XBLA release.
Introduction
Over the past several years I had the opportunity to see many games at various conventions. Many of these, I saw more than once as they were at various points in their development cycles. Robot Entertainment's Orcs Must Die! is one such game that I first saw at PAX East 2010 and felt even in its early stages that it was certain to be a hit. With subsequent opportunities to play the game, my conviction only grew greater and now I can share the thrill of Orcs Must Die! with all of you!
What is Orcs Must Die! ?
Simply put, Orcs Must Die! is a unique blend of tower defense, 3rd-person shooter and RPG. You take on the role of a War Mage of The Order. Your job is to prevent waves and waves of orcs from making it to an inter-dimensional rift that you are protecting. If you fail, they would wreak havoc on your world. The game has a great art style that evokes thoughts of Dragon's Lair - that is until the orcs start flooding in.
Gameplay
The gameplay is fun, fast and frenetic. When the game starts you are placed somewhere in a dungeon. A minimap shows the location of the rift you are protecting, as well as the door (or doors) that orcs will be busting through to make their way towards the rift. Subtle animations show the basic paths the orcs will take to the rift, so you have an idea of where to set up you defenses.
You start out with a very limited selection of traps which incoludes a tar trap, which slows the orcs down, and a spike trap which causes spikes to come from the floor. Your initial funds are limited, so trap selection and placement is key. You have all the time in the world to do your initial setup, and when that's complete you can unleash the horde of orcs.
After releasing the orcs, they break down a door (or doors), and immediately begin making their way towards the rift. While your traps are doing their thing, you also have a trusty crossbow that you can use to shoot the orcs. As the game progresses, you earn a wider selection of traps, from wall darts to floor plates that launch the orcs to support archers. At the same time, the types of orcs that attack are also supplemented from just the normal orc, to orcs that shoot at you, to small fast orcs, and finally to a big fat ogre.
Each level has a certain number of orcs that you are "allowed" to let through the rift. Let too many through and you fail. This is where the beauty and complexity comes in. After you completely kill a wave of orcs, you only have 10 seconds before the next wave comes in. Using the money you earned from killing orcs in the previous wave, you buy, sell and place traps quickly to prepare for the next wave. Every three waves you have an extended break, in which you can spend as much time as you want before starting the next 3 waves. Also, between waves your minimap toggles to a "bloodmap" so you can see how well your traps performed and where you had to make kills with your own weapons.
After completing a level, you earn between one and five skulls, depending on how quickly you completed the level, how effective your traps were, and how many orcs made it through the rift. You can spend these skulls to upgrade your traps in various ways, some as simple as making them cost less, and others like adding a slowing effect to the floor spikes so that they slow the horde at the same time as damaging them. After the traps are upgraded you can always go back and play through levels you've already completed, trying to earn more skulls to purchase even more upgrades with.
There is so much more to the game after you make it into the second act of the campaign, but that portion would be spoiler-ridden…so maybe I should keep that to myself.
Conclusion
After a tremendous drought in quality, original XBLA games, this year has amazing new IPs making their way onto the marketplace. Orcs Must Die! is certainly one of the most fun XBLA games I've played this year (the praise I rained on Bastion is due to Orcs as well). The game is fast and fun, and keeps not only your reflexes on tilt, but also has your brain working overtime to figure out the best way to handle the oncoming horde. I can't say enough good things about Orcs Must Die! You can download the trial or full XBLA game starting today. It is certainly worth the 1200 Microsoft Points. Kudos to Robot Entertainment!
