Rock, Paper, Shotgun

According to the folklore of our culture – relayed by minstrels sweetly crooning out their dulcet tones in the backs of taverns and also, like, every Hollywood movie ever – heroes always arrive just in the nick of time. So it shouldn’t be a problem for an academy‘s worth of medieval-themed do-gooders, right? You’d think so, but then Hero Academy‘s planned release date of August 8th came and went with nary a peep – even from Heavy weapons guy. Thousands of lives were lost. Better (slightly) late than never, though, and Robot’s provided a TF2-tinged launch trailer to make it official. Because things aren’t real until they have trailers.

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This is the most splendid of news. If you don’t know Hero Academy, it’s a turn-based, two-player tactical game from the chaps behind Orcs Must Die and if you are now wondering why you haven’t heard of it, it’s because it’s an iOS game. Except on August 8th it’ll also be a PC game, as it’s coming to Steam and allowing cross-platform play. Opponents are played asynchronously, so you take your turn, inform your opponent and wait for a response. This means you can play loads of games at the same time and with its chessy appeal, you’ll probably want to. I shall welcome it to my PC with a smile and, oh look, Valve have provided an exclusive team. Trailer below.

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A trench-coat-clad detective emerges from a thick late night fog. He spots his partner – a smaller, more plainly dressed man – standing near a small bridge between two rocky cliffs. And also a pile of dead orc bodies. “What was the official time of death?” the detective asks grimly, not even bothering to greet his protege. “Midnight or somewhere thereabouts. July 30,” the young man replies. Both then briefly survey the carnage. It’s not pretty. Spikes and arrows protrude from torn green flesh, while others are singed, and still others seem as though they’ve gone careening through the air until… splat.

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After Orcs Must Die made an oh-so-straightforward name for itself with a multiplatform release, it was bit odd – though certainly not unappreciated – to see the second of its orc-slaying lineage go PC-only. But then I began to imagine the possibilities afforded by legally binding, exploding-collar-enforced commitment to our benevolent platform of choice. Custom levels, all sorts of off-the-wall player created traps, genre-twisting overhauls like Orcs Must Meticulously Manage A Small Business For Some Reason. So, giddy with thoughts of pie-in-the-sky promise (and my custom map that’s a lot like BioShock Infinite, except set on a giant pie), I asked Robot Entertainment if mod support was a lock for Orcs Must Die 2. Then I got really sad.

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Orcs Must Die, Shoot Many Robots, Kill All Zombies… A trend emerges, and I’m not entirely sure I’m down with so many prosaic game titles. Especially when they’re all so violent. Can’t we have Hug Many Cats, Cake Must Be Eaten, Visit All Museums?

Until then, we shall make do with Orcs Must Die! 2, which will slaughter its way towards our PCs’ hard drives this Summer. It brings a co-op mode to the rather splendid greenskin-tormenting, introducing a lady partner for the returning, possibly Evil Dead-inspired War Mage hero. She’s apparently ‘more nuanced’, using stuff like mind control rather than the bloke’s straight-up genocidal tactics. Mind controlling orc hordes sounds like a good time to me. Reveal trailer for the game that is sadly not subtitled ‘Must Die Harder’ is below.
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To all things, DLC. It’s the law. The law of slightly tiring microtransactions. This law includes Robot Entertainment’s impressively ridiculous Orcs Must Die, which is due two globs of DLC in the not too distant. The first of these is Artifacts of power, which launches for $2.49 next Tuesday. I could describe them to you, but I have a headache and need a lie down/hug, so I’m going to show them to you instead. No, don’t weep for me. I’ll live. If you can really call it living.
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Silently, so silently the Orcs arrived. And silently, so silently, they uploaded a demo of their sort-of-tower-defence opus of sadism to Steam, a week ahead of the full game’s release. A week ahead! No-one does that anymore. Well, not many. Let us celebrate Robot Entertainment’s unexpected kindness! How? Well, by following their single, simple imperative. That imperative being, of course, Orcs Must Die. 995MB of greenskin-bothering awaits the curious (demo link is on the right of that page) right now.

I am one of the curious, but first I must download 21 cocking gigabytes of Rage. Megatextures is a pretty apt name, I guess.

Robot Entertainment seem to realise that if they’re going to tell us that Orcs Must Die, they damn well better give us plenty of ways to make that happen. They could have gone a different route and cast the player as the orcs pipe-smoking bowler-hatted defendant. Press the left mouse button to say, “Must they though, gentlemen of the court? Must they really?” Instead, they’ve just laden their tower defence type game with all manner of traps and have decided to show some of the various ways that orcs will die in this enjoyable interactive trailer. It’s like playing Heavy Rain but with green humanoids instead of red herrings.

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