The Case

‘Orcs Must Die!’ (OMD) is back; this time with more orcs, more traps, a new playable character and co-op! But is it all enough to deliver an experience as fresh and intense as the first iteration?

The Trial

The first game was a hybrid of many genres: action, tower defence and shooter. It also had persistent upgrades and upgrades that only remained for the duration of each level. OMD 2 keeps most of the foundation the same, though the developers have definitely put a lot of effort into streamlining and changing the persistent upgrade system. They removed the level based upgrades and turned everything into tactical persistent upgrades, meaning that you can no longer have both upgrades at the same time. Beyond the changes to the upgrade system, the biggest difference is of course the addition of co-op.

As co-op is perhaps the biggest selling point of the game, I will discuss this first. Rather than throwing in co-op into a singleplayer game, it actually forms a key part of the story. This even means that playing the game entirely solo will result in a story that won’t make much sense at all. The co-op uses Steam to connect people to each other, meaning you have the advantages and disadvantages of Steam in this aspect. As a result, if Steam friends goes down you will immediately be thrown out of your active game, which is never a good thing, especially in a game like OMD 2. Fortunately, the Steam friends servers are rarely down and while it is up, it works better than most other systems out there. Many of you have probably experienced the headaches that systems like GameSpy and GFWL can cause.

Once connected to your co-op partner, you can jump into a level together. Here, the developers hold nothing back when throwing hordes of orcs towards unsuspecting co-op partners (or solo heroes if you decide to play it alone). I was quite surprised how fast the game ramped up the difficulty, as in the first game the difficulty slowly increased incrementally with each level. In OMD 2 the difficulty ramps way up already on the 3rd stage. This is not a bad thing though as it definitely will catch all players by surprise and guarantee some very intense moments. Upon completion of a level in solo or in co-op, you and your partner earn skulls depending on your performances in the level. These skulls can then be used to purchase and unlock new weapons and traps or to upgrade existing ones. For those with plenty of skulls there are even skins to unlock. Each trap, weapon and trinket has 3 levels of normal upgrades and 2 unique upgrades to choose from, some things also have one or more additional upgrades to unlock. There is also a full refund feature that can be used as frequently as you want and holds no penalty for using it. I am quite glad they included this feature as otherwise the upgrade system could be quite annoying if you buy traps and then discover it is just not something for you.

The game plays almost exactly the same solo as in co-op, except that the challenge is quite a bit higher than solo. You do get more slots though to put traps and weapons in, plus the timing on the waves is slightly different to make it doable solo, thus keeping the difficulty in line with playing co-op. For those desiring even more of a challenge, all the levels can also be played on nightmare mode, which, as the name suggests, is extremely challenging and intense. Furthermore, you can also play all levels on endless mode. In this mode you get endless waves of all the different orc types in the game. This gives players the opportunity to go wild with their defences and also gives them the chance to earn many additional skulls. The game has a set limit on the number of guardians players can put though, to make sure they cannot just spam guardians to win all the levels.

Gameplay wise the title has not changed all that much from the first, this time around though there are more interactive environmental elements to use and there are even traps players can place, that require player interaction to activate. There are also a whole bunch of new traps and weapons as well as new orc types that add a lot of new elements and variety to the game. As a result, the levels can be replayed many times over by trying the same level on different modes with different tactics. The controls are also the same as the first game, with the exception of new weapons that work differently.

The audio and visual elements are very good and of surprisingly high quality. The game looks very crisp and is pleasing to behold - it is both colourful and detailed. The voice acting is top notch and the one-liners both characters say never get old. On top of this, the dialogue between the characters on certain levels can be hilarious. The music is equally good and provides a nice background tone that adds to the intensity and experience of killing orcs. The sound effects on everything are also of high quality. If you have a good sound system you will really hear every detail of your traps working on the orcs; the sound effects pack as much impact and ‘umph’ as the visual effects do.

The first OMD eventually received some DLCs, so it would not surprise me if OMD 2 will receive the same. This will not be a bad thing though as the game is at such a low price point, and launched with more than enough content that paid DLCs are justifiable. The game also had a pre-order bonus of receiving the levels of OMD 1 to play on OMD 2, I presume these will also be released later as a DLC for those who did not pre-order the game. In terms of bugs, while I never encountered any on the first title, I did sadly encounter some bad ones on OMD 2. So far only on co-op and only with certain people (who had an unstable internet connection). When I would equip a weapon it would fall to the floor and still shoot from the point it fell on the floor regardless of where I was standing, as you can imagine this can be a troublesome bug. Additionally, one trap also has an issue on both singleplayer and co-op that makes it useless to use until the issue gets fixed (the auto ballista trap).

The Verdict

‘Orcs Must Die! 2’ exceeds all my expectations. I was expecting an improved experience over the first game, but what I got was much more. The co-op is fantastically implemented, even managing to be more challenging than the singleplayer in the first. The singleplayer in this instalment on normal difficulty is extremely intense, fun and challenging.

All in all one of the best and most fun games that I have played this year. Truly an experience not to be missed.

Case Review