Many More Orcs Must Die!
I loved Orcs Must Die! I spent many hours gleefully squishing, stabbing, and burning orcs.. and trying to beat friends on the scoreboard, of course! Good times, good times.. 😉
Orcs Must Die! 2 carries on where the first game left off.. though with a bunch of new traps and weapons, and a second playable character, the Sorceress. And it’s still got that lovely art style..
Orcs Must Die! 2
Robot Entertainment have revealed Orcs Must Die! 2, which brings players together with their friends to continue the slaughter of the mindless orc mobs left over from Orcs Must Die!
The War Mage returns, and is largely unchanged, but now he’s joined by the Sorceress, who uses mind-control and magic..
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s9wkicuXog]
The game is due for release in summer 2012!
A Weekend’s Gaming
Most of the weekend was spent playing games (Mass Effect 3 multiplayer and Orcs Must Die!), with a little spent outside in the sun, and some TV time thrown in as well. I’d call that a good weekend 🙂
We had decided to get together and try out the multiplayer demo for Mass Effect 3.
Need More Time.. Oh Wait!
Over the last week I’ve added yet more to my list of unplayed games. I would normally say “I need more time”.. but I’ve now finished work, and it’s Christmas! Though I’ll soon have to start on some projects, it means I do have a lot more free time 🙂
Today was partly spent trying to achieve a Gold Badge in the adrenaline challenge mode of Defense Grid: The Awakening.. trying, but not succeeding. I completed the map, but didn’t score highly enough to get gold.
Earning a Gold Badge, and thereby getting the Flurry achievement was one of the objectives of Valve’s latest sale and competition: The Great Gift Pile.. collecting coal and winning prizes, with the chance to win everything on Steam via the Epic Holiday Giveaway on the 2nd Jan. Everything on Steam.. wow.. I really wouldn’t have enough time!
Last week, I acquired Empire Earth: Gold Edition via GOG.com.. Empire Earth and expansion The Art of Conquest were being given away to anyone who came to the Good Old Games site! Empire Earth is a real-time strategy by Stainless Steel Studios, said to be somewhat like my beloved Age of Empires, but going from the Stone Age all the way to the Space Age. Looking forward to this one..
I previously noted that I’d won a copy of EA’s Alice: Madness Returns for the 360, through DR Gaming‘s 12 Days of Christmas giveaway on Facebook.. the game arrived this week, and better still, it came with a bonus Xbox LIVE code for the original American McGee’s Alice! I remember playing the PC version of this game during my first Christmas together with Tim, on his recommendation 😉
Via a GameSpot UK competition, I won a Cyborg RAT 9 gaming mouse and “gaming surface” aka mousemat 😉
I’ve handed my address over and now await the postman! Great timing too.. my mouse has been failing intermittently for a while now! I also won a copy of Orcs Must Die! for Tim, through Day 2 of Splitkick.com’s Holiday Giveaway 2011. Note: I’m not keeping track of the number of competitions I haven’t won 😉
Yet other new games have arrived thanks to the Humble Indie Bundle.. the contents of Bundle #3 have been added as bonus gifts for those who paid over the average! This bundle contained Crayon Physics Deluxe, which I got from the Humble Introversion Bundle, and Lazy 8 Studios’ Cogs, which a friend gave me earlier in the year, as well as VVVVVV, Hammerfight and And Yet It Moves.
VVVVVV is a 2d platformer by Terry Cavanagh, with an interesting gravity-switching mechanic which you use to travel and avoid hazards. I’m hopeful that this doesn’t require too much flailing at the keyboard to manage, otherwise I’ll find it more frustrating than fun. Hammerfight, by Kranx Productions, is an aerial combat game where you control airships outfitted with hammers and swords!
The final game of the list is Broken Rules’ And Yet It Moves. It isn’t a horror game, as I first thought when I heard the title, but a 2d puzzle where you control the orientation of the game environment as well as the player character. This is the game I’m looking forward to most out of the three as I expect the puzzles to be quite fun!
Competitions and Presents!
What’s better than games? Free games! Having seen a large number of Christmas competitions out at the moment, I decided that I may as well try to win some games and spare my bank balance the pain..
So last weekend, I won a copy of the beautiful Trine from a competition on Splitkick.com! Since I had a copy, the guys kindly let me give it to a friend.. although this turned into a comedy of errors as he told me the wrong email and only realised after I’d told them.. but one more email later, he got the game 🙂
Oh, and I’ve completed Trine too! I loved the last level, with the continually rising lava, and the evil ghostly figure trying to stop us. There was also a bonus level, which was another mad dash to escape rising lava, but with purple vials to collect on the way.
Developers Frozenbyte have also now released Trine 2, and I found a few competitions for the game, and told friends to enter too. One of these involved writing a short story.. and I was surprised to find it really hard to come up with something, and how self-conscious I felt writing it and sending it in. I realised that I’m even more fussy about my writing than I am about my drawing!
My friend was lucky enough to win one of the competitions for Trine 2.. so he now has both games.. and through DR Gaming‘s 12 Days of Christmas giveaway on Facebook, I won a copy of EA’s Alice: Madness Returns for the 360.. awesome stuff as both Tim and I have wanted this since the teaser trailers came out over a year ago!
Valve have been running a Daily Wishlist Giveaway on Steam over the last week, where a winner each day will get the contents of their Wishlist. They’ve also had some great offers on, and two friends gifted me games as they came up: Robot Entertainment‘s fortress defence Orcs Must Die and DLC, and Bastion, an RPG by Supergiant Games!
I’ve been playing through Orcs Must Die, and discovered some of the new weapons and traps.. the Fire Bracers allow me to throw fireballs, and are therefore automatically awesome, although I run out of mana rather quickly.. and the Pounder, a ceiling-mounted trap, crushes the orcs with such finality that I can’t not love it! 🙂
I was also pleasantly surprised by the introduction of the Weavers, which add optional talent trees to the game, either strengthening the War Mage or the traps and Guardians. I love the fact you can choose these at the beginning of each level, so you can change how you play each time 🙂
Orcs Must Die Some More
Another game I tried out during ScampLAN was Orcs Must Die!
I previously played the demo, and while I thought the game was a lot of fun, I could see myself getting tired of it.. especially without co-op or versus mode. Therefore, I didn’t pick up the game, though I will keep my eye on it in case of a nice Steam offer 😉
The full game has more maps and a wider range of traps, though.. including some throwable acid pots which were very nice against small enemies. These were easier to use than the Boom Barrels, as they detonate with a right click.. or shatter when a trap goes off, rather than relying on you being able to shoot it in the middle of a horde of Orcs.
The demo had limited maps, so I was keen to look at the new ones on offer. Some of these had numerous routes for the enemies to take, meaning there was even more ground to cover.. for these I set up lots of traps down one path while I fought enemies down the other, rather than try to take them all on nearer the Rift.
The new defenses included Wall Blades, Spring Traps, and the Floor Scorcher.. I used Spring Traps and Floor Scorchers to knock enemies back, though I wished for a faster reset on both!
I was pleased to see new enemies too, as they add a bit of variation. The Kobolds were fast and rather good at slipping past my defenses.. though acid pots were great for wiping groups of them out.. and the Ogres were tough..
I didn’t get as far as looking at the upgrades for the new defenses, or at some of the other weapons for the Warmage.. but yeah.. waiting for that Steam offer 😉
Orcs Must Die!
Orcs Must Die is an action strategy game by Robot Entertainment, where you guard against waves of Orcs, using traps, weapons and spells. I tried the demo, which has three fortresses and a limited selection of traps.. enough to get an idea of what the full game will be like on release next week.
I quite like the character art 🙂
The Orcs aren’t too smart, and therefore make perfect enemies.. I also found their comments quite funny as they made their way over my traps 🙂
The three traps in the demo are the Tar Trap, which slows enemies, Floor Spikes, and my favourite, the Arrow Wall, which hits quite hard and also knocks the Orcs back.. I liked setting this up so the Orcs would end up on another trap!
I was less keen on the Boom Barrel.. although cheap, it requires detonating, and I’d rather spend the active part of the round shooting or pushing the Orcs back with the Wind Belt.
In addition to the traps, you also have weapons.. the Crossbow, the Bladestaff, and the Wind Belt, unlocked later in the demo. Of the three, I found the Wind Belt to be the best weapon as it allowed you to send the Orcs back over the traps again.. and the special attack allows you pick up a single enemy.. not particularly useful, but rather funny 🙂
Sadly, the game is only single-player.. although there are leaderboards where you can try to beat your friends’ scores, this just isn’t as much fun as playing alongside friends, and I think it would wear thin after only a short while.