Orcs Must Die 2, Review and Co-op demonstration

Hey folks,

This is a short review of Orcs Must Die 2 and a demonstration of the new cooperative gameplay mode.  We'll go through some of the setup involved with getting a cooperative game going and then highlight some of the more important aspects of the game.

Without further ado, let's begin...

For those who haven't played its predecessor, Orcs Must Die 2 continues the theme of a kind of First Person Shooter meets tower defense game.  Your job is to keep waves of rampaging orcs of all shapes, sizes and threat level from getting past you.

This incarnation's most important change from the original is the addition of a cooperative play mode.   Arguably the most compelling reason to buy the game, cooperative play is at the heart of Orcs Must Die 2.

That said, let's see about setting up a co-op game...

Setting up a co-op game isn't much different from setting up a single player game.  In fact the only difference is the need to send a game invite to your partner.

By the way, you can set your controls from the main menu but I've found the defaults work nicely.  Standard WASD and space bar will be familiar to any FPS or RPG gamer.  One of the best things about this game is the simplicity of the user interface.  Nothing is difficult to find so no BF3 or Skyrim flashbacks here.

We start a co-op game by creating a party.  From the Campaign screen click the Create Party button on the campaign menu to start the game invite process.  It's pretty much a standard Steam invite so I won't go into detail.  Know it can take some time as the Steam join process is a little kludgy in this game.

Once your friend has joined, pick the game difficulty level  from the button on the top of the campaign screen then choose a map from the list of available options in the middle of the campaign screen...

As you play the game more maps open up...

When you're ready click the Play button!

There's a nice reference screen that shows up the first time that you play that shows the basic screen layout. 

We also get the back-story cutscene the first time through.

As in the first game your first task is to set up your spell book.  Here you choose the spells and weapons you'll use in the current game.  Available traps, spells and weapons can be changed, sold or upgraded  from the spell book option on the main menu.

As in the first game, Skulls are the unit of currency.  The more skulls you have the more goodies you can buy.  You get skulls by dispatching your enemies.

Once you've chosen your loadout, deploy your traps. 

The first wave won't start till you initiate it.  After that each succeeding wave will have a countdown time until the last wave which again forces you to manually start it.

Powerups show up as you dispatch your Orc adversaries.  Health, Mana as well as other bonuses appear frequently.    You can deploy traps in the middle of a wave if you have enough points...and time.

Co-op gameplay is excellent in Orcs Must Die 2.  In fact most of the levels are designed for it and difficult if not impossible to master without a partner's help.

In addition to weapons and traps you can equip special spells that can be used to bolster you and your partner's attributes like armor, mana or health.  Once used, they need time to recharge so use them wisely.

All in all a worthy successor to the original game with the wonderful addition of co-op gameplay.   That's the good, now the bad...

I'll say this, ignore the leaderboards.  The game has already been shown to be vulnerable to memory hacks like Cheat engine.  Which explains the Billion point scoring you see in the video above.

Still, who cares about leaderboards??

Orcs Must Die 2's addition of co-op gameplay makes it almost infinitely replayable.  It's also likely that there will be new DLC content in the future as was done with the original game.

Aside from the kludgy game invites (which is likely more a Steam problem than a problem with the game) and the occasional bad camera angle when you get too close to a wall I can't fault the game.  I plan on spending many hours with it. 

It's earned a place in the weekly game night rotation as well which says a lot.  Game night time is precious and Orc's must Die 2 is worth spending some time on.