Orcs Must Die! review

Orcs Must Die! The title would seem to say it all, a simple call to enact genocide upon an entire race. In the game’s defence, the titular orcs are deserving of their fate, as they are the aggressors here, pouring forward in huge waves. Defence is the right word too, as Orcs Must Die! is a rather smart blend of tower defence and third-person shooter.

The plot, explained through voice over and some characterful graphic stills, is straightforward. You are the last of the War Mages, tasked to defend the rifts from the ravening orc hordes. The orcs want to use the rifts to access the peaceful world beyond, and lay waste to everything there. All of this sounds like pretty mediocre fantasy fare. Thankfully, the developers have kept their tongue firmly in their cheek. Your nameless War Mage is the black sheep of an otherwise straight-laced bunch – wise-cracking, anti-authoritarian and cocky beyond belief – he provides a comic centre to the constant carnage.

Each level consists of one or more entrance gates, from which the orc horde emerges, and one or more rifts, which are their objective. The simplest levels are little more than a straight corridor, but the more complex designs including overhanging balconies, flights of stairs and multiple routes to defend. You must stop the horde from entering the rift, with increasingly numerous waves to fend off before you can advance to the next level.

Your main weapon against the horde is a wide range of deadly traps. These include classic designs, such as spikes that pop-up from the floor or arrows that fire from the walls; to the more unusual, including automatic crossbows, psychedelic mushrooms and spring-loaded launch pads. The latter can be used to launch orcs into pits of fire or other traps. You can place traps pretty much anywhere you want, as long as there’s a suitable wall or floor to attach it to. In addition to mechanical traps you can place archers and swordsmen, to provide a slightly more flexible response to attacks. You’ll quickly come up with combinations of traps that work for you, though we won’t spoil things by revealing any of our own favourites here.

Arguably as important as your traps and minions, is your own arsenal. You War Mage comes with a rather nifty magic crossbow, which can fire very quickly but is only accurate at range if you pick your shots. There are numerous additional options, though each takes up a slot in your spellbook that could be assigned to a trap instead. Our favourites include the wind blast spell, which lets you push large groups of orcs off the edge of any convenient precipice, or back into a set of traps they just slogged through.

With traps and shooting, the gameplay is both tactical and hectic. You get a small budget to build your initial defences and then earn money to build more as you kill your attackers. The orcs come in waves, but every three rounds you get a breather to take stock of your defences. In these breaks you can sell any trap you’ve placed and recoup the full cost, allowing you to switch strategies mid-level. You can build traps during a wave, though desperately upgrading your defences while face-to-face with orcs isn’t recommended.

Between waves you can also choose from one of a number of upgrade trees. By spending cash here you can temporarily improve your traps, or your own weapons, or add a wide range of special effects – like zombie orcs to fight who you. In this way, you can further tailor your abilities to the challenges of that specific level.

With such a range of weapons at your disposal, the standard orcs aren’t going to give you much trouble, unfortunately they’ve got friends. First you’ll see upgraded orcs, bearing crossbows or shields. Soon other creatures appear, including fleet-footed gremlins, Gnolls that hunt you down rather than heading for the rift and big, tough ogres. Flying enemies and those with elemental-based immunities (and weaknesses) soon follow.

In fact, this is a game that keeps on giving to the very end. There are twenty-five levels to conquer, which took us around 13 hours on the default settings. Every new level provides you with a new trap or spell to play with and, as mentioned above, there’s a wide range of enemies too. You get scored on each level, and can earn skulls that let you permanently upgrade your capabilities. Once finished, you’ll need to take on the nightmare level, which uses the same levels layouts but takes advantage of the full bestiary, and range of traps, from the off.

Orcs Must Die! is slickly presented, with amusing graphics and animations. Technically, speaking there’s little to get excited about, but the graphics, animations and physics model are all spot on. Depsite its complexity, the controls work well, whether you’re sniping at orcs or quickly laying down a complex series of traps – it works equally well on a joypad or mouse and keyboard.

If we have any criticism it’s that certain traps aren’t more tailored to certain creatures, and that certain creatures, bar the flying ones, aren’t more capable of avoiding certain traps. You end up using the full range out of experimentation, rather than necessity. But as soon as things get tough, we quickly found ourselves falling back to the same tried and trusted tactics. It’s also not that challenging, and we completed around half the game before failing any level.

Orcs Must Die! starts with a simple command, but permits plenty of personal freedom in how you go about your genocidal defence. Furthermore, despite the endless death you mete out to your assailants, it maintains a light-hearted, up-beat tone throughout its considerable length. There could have been some more clever interactions between the traps and the enemies, which stops it from scoring top marks, but it’s certainly a bargain given the sheer breadth of fun on offer here.