🎮[REVIEW] Orcs Must Die is a Classic That is Still Worth It Today

Orcs Must Die is a tower-defense title developed and published by Robot Entertainment. It was released on 11 Oct, 2011, and is one of the most unique games I've seen of these genre.

It's a third-person action game where you fortify castle halls with traps that stab, crush, grind, burn, impale, melt, and electrify your enemies while you shoot them down with your crossbow.

I haven't seen other titles like that, so I was really curious when I found it, and after finishing it, I'm not surprised it sits at an "Overwhelmingly Positive" score on Steam.

📖The Story

The story of Orcs Must Die leans more to the unserious side. You are a warmage apprentice whose mentor died in the most cartoonish way possible...by slipping on the stairs and bumping his head.

Now alone but armed with your mentor's grimoire, powerful relics, and your trusty enchanted crossbow, you have to fight away the invaders who are throwing everything they have to try and get to the rift, and if they reach it, they will invade your world.

As you continue to defend different stages, you will unlock new traps, relics, and weapons until you eventually stop the hordes' advances for good.

🎮Gameplay

The gameplay is centered on helping you turn every stage into an orc meat grinder. It does this by giving you up to 9 slots to switch between traps, magic items, or familiars.

Then you scout the stage for the perfect spot to place them and plan your defense. Each stage is different, and some have environmental traps/weapons, like lava pits or ballistas.

Regular traps and familiars cost coins, which you collect from defeated foes, while magic items require mana to cast. There are also blessings that improve your magic, traps, weapons, or give you special abilities for the rest of the run. There are three, but you can only pick one, and it costs coins.

The better you do on each stage, the more skulls you'll earn at the end, and you use them for permanently upgrading your traps.

Also, despite the name of the game, you will face a wide variety of enemies. There are orcs, ogres, hellbats, kobolds, gnolls, and their different variants.

🎨Design

Orcs Must Die has a very cartoonish art style that fits well with the tone of the gameplay and story.

It's colorful enough to show that it doesn't take itself too seriously without shying away from showing some gore where it matters. Like when enemies get dismembered, squashed, or melted thanks to a well-placed trap.

The sound design is solid, the voice acting is good, the enemies look menacing, the traps look deadly, the mechanics are simple to understand, and the stages are easy to navigate.

All these things made slaying orcs a very satisfying and fun experience that I haven't seen in other tower defenses yet.

😐Negatives

Orcs Must Die is one of the funniest titles I've ever played, and so far, I only encountered a few issues I must mention.

• There seemed to be some performance issues. There were a few times when the enemy's animation froze, and instead of walking, they slid on the ground. This might be due to it being a pretty old game, to be honest.
• You need to mess around a bit with the display settings so it covers your whole screen. The first time I launched it, the game window was too small for me to play comfortably.
• Even though it has many traps, due to their cost, you might just stick to a few that work well enough and not bother experimenting with the rest.

Despite these points, I still had a really good time with Orcs Must Die, and I'm hoping for the sequels to be just as good.

⭐Final Verdict: 8/10 Excellent

Orcs Must Die is a curious title that makes you an active fighter instead of just letting the defenses do all the work. Its story is simple and kind of goofy, but it does get serious when it has to.

The gameplay is really fun, and given how different the stages are from each other, you might find yourself trying different combinations to get the most from your orc-slaying arsenal.

For that reason, I give Orcs Must Die an 8/10 and believe it is an excellent game to play in your free time. I'm now excited to eventually try the sequels because this game is definitely something special.