Orcs Must Die Review

Tower defense games have somewhat surprisingly populated PSN and Xbox Live with downloadable offerings for the past several years. Games like Comet Crash frankly are some of the best that you can find in a generally PC-dominated genre. Enter Robot Entertainment and their latest product: Orcs Must Die.

Orcs Must Die, like so many others in this genre, is very straightforward. You simply have to prevent the invading orcs from overrunning your castle’s headquarters. They barge into the doors and follow a path that leads to the headquarters. Your job is to stop them in their path by using your bow and arrow, sword, traps and whatever other means.

How is this game different from other TDs? It is not the top-down, point-and-click gameplay that you would expect from this type of game. Instead you have a third-person view and can actively participate in the fight rather than watch the towers do everything for you. In this game, there aren’t any towers to speak of anyway, just traps. These range from a spike death trap to a tar pit that will slow the orcs down.

This game is not meant to be an idle strategy game. Before you fight the onslaught of orcs you get the opportunity to lay your traps. They cost points so you only have a limited amount you can buy. This means that you will have to do some of the dirty work yourself by fighting them with your sword or shooting with your bow and arrow. Killing orcs gains you more points to buy traps with.

If you want a truly innovative tower defense game, Orcs Must Die is the best one to come out in quite a while. The idea of combining strategy tower defense game with a third-person shooter is quite effectively done. While there is no multi-player, the single-player is more than sufficient to keep you satisfied for quite a while. Check it out. You will not be disappointed.