Names are important. For people who were born with unfortunate names, life is hard enough without all the teasing. That’s what exactly happens to this game and its cheesy title. If you judge a book by its cover and a game by its name, stop doing that now and continue reading. You wouldn’t regret it.

The tower defence genre is easy to be dismissed as a short, app-like game that has no action nor hardcore elements in it. Ask people about tower defence games, and they would think of Plants versus Zombies, or Kingdom Rush. Both games are great on its own, but it does leave a feeling that the genre has to be powered by mobile or tablet devices. This is…until Orcs Must Die! came to the PC in 2011, which truly redefined the genre. It throws us away from the classic top-down view of placing towers along a pre-defined path to controlling the the main hero, who would have a mean arsenal of traps and weapons to kill the green-skinned menace (hence the title…in case you haven’t noticed)

Nope….it’s not like this.

Orcs Must Die!2 and its prequel has a simple story.  Essentially, the story revolves around a faction of wizards known as the Order, who guard the Rifts as a source of magical power. Over centuries, the Order is to maintain the peace in the world through the use of magic for humanity. However, the Rifts are also sought by the Orc faction to pass to the human world – essentially a mix bag of Orcs, Orges, Gnolls, kobolds and bats. The Order were able to defend against them by having magically-empowered fortresses to guard the Rifts until the orcs appeared to have suddenly gained in strength and intelligence, which was shown later to be lead by the evil Sorceress, a past student of the Order who sought to use magic to control the Orc army for herself.

That of course, didn’t materialise. In Orcs Must Die! previously, the protagonist, an Apprentice War Mage, eventually found a way to seal the Rift, stopping the use of magic forever for humanity who has grown accustomed to using magic as a way of life. In Orcs Must Die! 2 now, the Sorceress, found to be weakened without magic, managed to escape from the mindless Orc army that she no longer can control and tag team (not-surprisingly) with the himbo jock of a War Mage to massacre her previously mind-controlled green minions. The dialogue between them is cheeky and hilarious, offering a light-hearted feel to a game that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

The gameplay is where it shines the MOST, and that is where a lot of game developers sometimes forget what is at the heart of a game: having fun. You control either the Sorceress or the War Mage, each with their own traps and weapons. The game rewards with its gruesome currency of having orcish skulls after each level, much like the 5 star system found in most app games for completing a level. These could be used for upgrades that are extensive to suit your gaming style. Taking the trap Arrow walls for instance, it could be upgraded with fire arrows or ice arrows. And if you were to upgrade it more, you can place them on the ceiling to create raining arrows of death. During the levels, by carefully (and sometimes creatively) placing traps on the floors, walls and ceilings, you find yourself gleefully smirking as your killbox of traps grind, cut, slash, burn, freeze or melt the huge variety of enemies pouring out to reach their goal. It is awesome fun, for example, to build a Rube Goldberg Machine of sorts, by having enemies flung up in the air by using a steam trap, and while they are levitating in the air, having a well-placed archer shooting at them (and consequently the ceiling), which would trigger a ceiling trap full of boulders to fall on the floating enemies.

That being said, the traps are limited by having a reset timer, and that is where it deviate from standard tower defence games by needing your character to be in the middle of the action to kill off what the traps were unable to. In addition, the traps are limited by the amount of cash you have and one have to brainstorm to place the traps in the most effective manner. There is a lot of thinking and the difficulty, especially for solo play, could be unforgiving. The designers obviously design some of the maps for co-operative play and that gave the game much criticism for its sudden difficulty spike. However, I enjoyed the challenge and frequently find myself pondering how to improve on the trap setup and how to spend the funds more wisely to kill orcs.

Ohhh…the traps are soooo delightful.

When give the chance to play with a friend, co-operative play makes it even more fun. And that were where Robot Entertainment took the feedback most from Orcs Must Die! and greatly improved on. It is deeply satisfying to play shoulder to shoulder with your friend against the tide of enemies rushing your way. From the Story mode to Endless mode, where 50 waves of enemies come crashing upon you, you will find yourself needing a friend most of the time. It is fun to devise together where to place the traps and where to defend, and this game delivers a nice buddy system to it.

My only gripe for this game is the lack of player-produced maps. Please do not get me wrong, Orcs Must Die has a lot of content with weekly challenges released by Robot Entertainment that restrict the player to certain types of equipment and traps. However, it would be cool to design a map for a friend to complete, much like the Warcraft 3 Map editor which spawned off lots of fun and creative TD games.

For all its content, depth and the extensive replay value, Orcs Must Die! 2 is remarkably cheap. I got it from the Steam Sale that occurred during the Christmas Season (which just ended yesterday) at just USD3.74 (- 75% off!!!), which is way cheaper than some of the paid games you see in you mobile or tablet apps. For you guys who ignored my post or missed the sale, fret not. Orcs Must Die!2 is still very cheap at UD15. This is a game that I highly recommend for kids and adults alike.

I would give it 9/10. For more tips on Orcs Must Die!2, be sure to check out the posts in the coming weeks. =)