This game looks somewhat interesting

Looks like a fun tower defense style game, but it doesn't really grip me from the trailer either. Even though killing tons of orcs is, of course, fun.

it seems to be a new genre developing, the FPS/RTS hybrid. Or FPS/tower defense. Whatever. Anyway, it's just something to keep an eye on. It's set to retail at $14.99... throw a sale on top of that and I'll probably grab it.

IGN gave it a 9.0.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/119/1198506p1.html

Mmm. I'll have to keep an eye on this then!

I find myself going to smaller and less 'open' games recently...not sure why. Maybe my tastes in gaming are changing with getting older? Maybe it's just a phase.

Definitely just a phase.

There's a Steam demo. It's fun, but only the first 3 levels, and level 1 is exceedingly straight-forward. It's pretty fun, but I could see it getting really crazy at higher levels.

Woot! I just downloaded this a couple hours ago on XLA. Maaaaaan, it's awesome - it's got a kick ass sound track, some great comedy one liners (including "Winning!") and solid, well thought out, smoothly controlled gameplay. I'm about 10 levels in and I can confirm they get more complicated as it goes on, including multi-directional levels, multi-spawn levels, multi-level levels etc.

For example at one point, I had two doors each leading in to their own corridor which in turn lead to a junction which both lead to my tower. It sounds a lot more complicated than it is. Just imagine the shape of an American football goal post - the spirit gate being at the bottom.

You think you've sussed it out, got all your traps set up - and boom, it spawns a troll. This means you have to leave one side hoping it can defend itself whilst you take out the troll, and hey presto: Your game is all fucked up. So far though I've not come across anything too challenging and all the levels seem a lot more daunting at first than they actually are.

The game rewards you skill with skulls, which can in turn be used to purchase upgrades for your traps. This varies from increased range/damage, to added poison to cheaper cost to build in the game. So far my favourite traps are the arrow walls for the sheer carnage and damage they do and the spring traps for the comedy value. The most useful one I've found so far though is the Archers. On certain levels where the enemies spawn they are enclosed in a small space. This means you can pop off head shot after head shot. This isn't so easy when the Orcs spawn in a large hall however, and they scatter as they charge in. This is where the archers come in handy because they can help whittle down the enemy as they disperse. Combine that with some blockades (To help channel them) and some tar (to slow them) you can generally speaking keep most orcs in the first room.

Once they do break through, however you're not without power as a Champion from the short range rapid fire of the crossbow to the deadly headshots, to your wind-belt (Imagine the 'using the force') to your sword, you've got a lot of back up to choose from. Or you could just drop a chandelier on someone's head!

Epic game, if a bit pricey - but you won't be disappointed with the result.

cool, thanks for the quick review. I'll definitely pick this up at some point, though I may wait for a sale.

Got the game from Peltz a while ago and have been playing it for a few days now - totally enjoying it. Like Mole said, it's fun, funny, fast-paced and rather rewarding. The art style and the traps are kick-ass too. Nothing like having traps push armored ogres into a lava pit.

I finished the campaign in a few hours which was enjoyable gameplay-wise and a riot in terms of laughs, but then I read online that the nightmare mode is where the game really starts to shine. Basically in nightmare mode you do the maps of the campaign again but you start every map with your full roster of traps/spells, and the enemies are end-game enemies from the bat. It's great stuff, but there's one thing I don't like about it: unlike in the "normal" campaign, where you have all the time to recon the lay of the map first and lay down traps, nightmare mode puts you RIGHT into the action. The moment you close the "pick spells/traps" screen enemies start pouring in after 5 seconds. Needless to say, this is a retarded mechanic and only makes me start a map, run around to check what it's like, restart the map to lay down traps. How can I fucking defend a huge map with 2-3 entry points if they throw me in blind from the bat? Stupid design. Luckily the rest of the mode is great stuff.

Took some screens

I think you need to check the picture below .

haha, is that Jacky Chan?

I finished the game on nightmare yesterday. Pretty challenging, but not frustrating. Good stuff. Doing the DLC maps now, they look pretty hard.