It’s an even better day for orcs to die

Orcs Must Die 2 is pretty much everything I wanted in Orcs Must Die. Namely, a game as good as Toy Soldiers: Cold War.

To see all that stuff in motion reminds me of a carwash. But for orcs. And with blades instead of brushes and acid instead of soap. In the upper left is a net full of boulders that I can drop at any time. On the right, coming down from the ceiling, is a whirring giant eggbeater called a haymaker. It’s positioned over a set of spikes that thrust up through the floor. To the right are jets that shoot out powerful sticky acid. All this stuff is nifty enough. And then I noticed you can scroll the selection box down. There’s whole other screenfuls of traps down there! With the co-op, leaderboards, and a long long menu of stuff to upgrade, this is a game that’s going to have legs where the previous game had stubby appendages.

  • http://www.lagserv.net/ colbyj

    Maybe I’m missing something, but this is posted in reviews yet there’s only a single paragraph… what’s up with that?

  • tomchick

    Oops, sorry Colby. Category fumble. I had it as a placeholder for where the review would eventually go, but decided to go ahead and post a short blurb about how much I’m digging it. I’ll have a full review up on Friday after I’ve spent some more time with it.

    Spoiler: I really like it!

  • amanda_chen

    Yeah, setting up an efficient killing machine to wipe out a despised race can be very moreish.

  • Peter Michelsen

    Did you ever take a stab at Evil Genius, Tom? Playing Orcs, I’m constantly reminded of how satisfying it was to string together those traps. Truly a shame it didn’t get a second chance.

  • Peter Michelsen

    Did you ever take a stab at Evil Genius, Tom? Playing Orcs, I’m constantly reminded of how satisfying it was to string together those traps. Truly a shame it didn’t get a second chance.

  • http://www.facebook.com/gregcarere Greg Carere

    You didn’t happen to construct that little hallway with Tycho over at Penny Arcade, did you? He also praised the virtues of the Car Wash (http://penny-arcade.com/2012/07/27).

    I liked the first OMD well enough, but this is sounding more and more like something I’m going to have to press-gang someone into playing with me.

  • tomchick

    Yes, good call on the Evil Genius comparison. Of course, Evil Genius wasn’t quite so, uh, visceral.

  • tomchick

    I wonder how much it has to do with having seen a car wash scene in the last episode of Breaking Bad. But, yeah, the haymakers and acid sprayers can’t really help but recall car washes. Now they just need big steel wire brushes. Actually, that might even be in there somewhere.

  • superslug

    damn I was going to make a joke about how you had forgotten to put a score on what was clearly a Tom Chick metacritic approved review.