Gameplay Sound    Graphics Value Publisher: Freeverse    Genre: Action Min OS X: 10.4

Hordes Of Orcs 2 November 28, 2010 | Jon Carr

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Click to enlarge Eat My Railguns!

For those unfamiliar with "tower defense," the concept is simple. Creatures spawn on one side of the map and make their way on a predetermined path to the other side in an effort to reach something, or achieve an objective you don't want them to achieve. At your disposal are various towers which you can place on the map to stop them.

In Freeverse's variant, you face off against the titular Hordes of Orcs who are trying to destroy your village, pillage your treasure, make off with your gems or other dastardly deeds. It's all very Warcraft-esque as the orcs come through a glowing portal in every map. You have 6 different towers, a wall, and 4 magic spells to aid your orc stopping missions. In the basic mode orcs start at one side of the map, and simply wish to go through the portal on the other side where your tasty village awaits destruction.

You start with a small amount of gold, and a brief period in which to place a tower or two before they start coming through. Do you buy several arrow towers, or spend more on an expensive fire tower? There is a small amount of strategy to what you pick, because not only are you limited by your gold, but some orcs have a resistance to a tower type, which forces you to mix up your towers or face failure as the waves gets harder. Been zapping those orcs with a row of lightning towers? Well, you won't be laughing when a wave of mini lightning orcs runs right by them into your portal.

Every tower type can be upgraded four times, which you will definitely want to do, as some orcs are immune to level one towers. Each upgrade costs more gold but gains range, damage, and sometimes the ability to attack multiple enemies at once. Lastly, you have a small wall block you can place in squares. It becomes very useful so you can create mazes for the orcs to go through, slowing them down, or just extra blocks around your towers. But the game does not allow you to block things off completely, there always has to be a path through the map and to your portal. You can also sell a tower for reduced gold if you need a quick spot of cash, or to open up a spot on the map.

If your towers aren't cutting it, or some orcs do get past them near your portal, you can use the teleport spell to send them back to the beginning. Or maybe fog to slow them down. Arrows bouncing off that tough guy? Use weaken to soften him up. But watch out, every spell costs mana, which slowly regenerates. Use it too freely and you could be caught powerless in a crucial moment when you need to cast some magic.

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