Orcs Must Die! Unchained Reviews

It's a fun game. This game focuses on the coop experience (which I often feel isn't there in other games), fun strategy (which can take some time to master) and the characters are fun (although I can't say they make themselves particularly interesting to me). I've played the game for a while now and I heard about how bad it was in the beginning. This was a tower defense game and in the beginning of this, they focused on pvp instead of pve. Thankfully, the makers of this game owned up to that mistake and made a change. They've also recently been updating the game to improve the interface and it's a lot better now. My honest opinion: give it a chance. It literally costs you no money (unless you want to spend it) and the community is pretty chill overall.

It's as if Robot took all the good things about the previous two installments (quick and fluid movement in both map navagation and control input, streamlined UI, fast load times, charming art direction, carefuly crafted map design, and a SINGLE PLAYER/CO-OP EXPERIENCE) and just chucked it all as a desperate ploy to get in on that sweet sweet MOBA money. The franchise was already a blend between shooter and tower defence, this experement pushed things one step too far by flirting with MOBA style vs mode which has permiated into the single player side of the game. Sadly it offers nothing in the way of what fans of the series want, which is often as simple as more of 1 & 2, but with greater map variety and a longer list of scenarios and levels, or at least a map editor and maybe mod support. Granted this is beta, so much of it's core design feels like a step backwards. Edit: I'll clarify, while the game is *now* single and co-op, the core mechanics have been designed on a MOBA foundation: https://youtu.be/hXzAahLlCYY?t=7m49s Those core mechanics have bled through production to the extent that everything looks and feels 'cheapened' for the sake of pvp. Perhaps this has more to do with the engine than the early MOBA direction, I can't say, though other aspects reflect that carry over. Systems for loot, leveling, currency and even difficulty levels are all based around a protracted grind and the fact that you can just outright buy gold and skulls as a microtransaction indicates that while Robot may have backpeddaled away from Unchained The MOBA, they certainly didn't fully re-commit to a proper single or co-op focused experience. To that end, Robot can now justifiably reap the rewards of a moba while not having to worry so much about hero and item balance. This in turn allows them the ability to lock away disproportionately powerful heros and items behind paywalls and turn a blind eye towards power creep. What worries me most about all this is that if Robot is commited to turning the franchise into a long term microtransaction engine then we can forget about a proper follow up to the fantastic first two games.

I've just started playing MOBA games under 3-4 months ago, and I got to try this one out before the loss of PvE mode, I personally like it back then. Now that it's all PvE, I find it's STILL a lot of fun, solo and team play, on top of that, the people who play are actually helpful, for example, you have a question about ANYTHING, ask, it'll be answered quickly, you can't 5* a map, again ask, lots of players are more then willing to join you and help show you some tricks to help or even help carry you though. The only problem I really see, is the fact that all these bad reviews (mostly about how it's not like the 1st two games - Well it's not them so suck it up princess) may be keeping new players from even trying it. It's not a pay to play/win/or anything, I haven't spent a dime on it, and I have no problems collecting/earning/passing maps. TRY IT, YOU MIGHT JUST LIKE IT!

I don't know why people do not like this game, but i do not share their opinion. I've played orcs must die 2 a little bit, and this one way more. It's really fun to think of a way to lead the orcs to the most efficient kill zone for them filled with traps. Very satisfactory to kill loads of them and get combo's. I also like that you can play with 3 players coop. While playing alone it's easy to complete a map, but it is hard to do so while staying within the time limit and getting 5 stars. Also pretty hard to play coop since the orcs become stronger then. Lastly i want to add that at the time of writing this the game has enoug players to enjoy playing online.

I didn't played for long, however, that short amount of playtime is enough for me to get the idea that I do not like this. I totally love Orcs Must Die 2, every level is another challenge and you need to think of the different traps that could be the most effective or most creative to play with. This, on the other hand... does not really need you to do that. When I played with my friend, all we did was spam spam spam and kill as much orcs we can with our hero abilities... we did not rely much on the traps and unlike OMD2, the orcs do not react to the physics of your attacks.. much? I recall the primary attacks do not make the orcs pause or react at all. Remember the times where you could charge a huge blow and send the orcs flying, that's fun. UX wise, i personally feel this is a downgrade from OMD2. Being a game dev myself I understand there needs to be some adjustments when there are some additional game mechanics added but making less of what was before is boterhing me as a gamer. Overall, this game reminds me of Heroes of the Storm... but if I were to play games like that, I'd rather play HOTS.

Take everything that was great about Orcs Must Die 1 and 2 and ruin it on purpose with a free to play gimmick? Sorry, not for me. Another entry in the series would have been much better with 4-5 player co-op and no free to play gimicks, players that arent slower than snails, and traps that actually work.

When OMDU was announced, I was intrigued since I was a big fan of OMD 1 and 2. I spent many hours on those games. So, an online version was interesting. However, I found the early version of OMDU not very appealing. The graphics weren't good, peformance was poor, and I hated Siege mode. I tried it and didn't get it, so I left. It wasn't my job to force myself to like it when I have so many other games accessible to me I naturally loved. OMDU was initially so far off from what I enjoyed so much from OMD 1&2. When I saw the acknowledgement in Version 1.6 that Siege mode was a failure and that renewed focus would go back to Survival mode, I was willing to come back and try it. Robot Entertainment acknowledged that they noticed that once people tried Siege mode, people never came back. Siege mode was running their fans off and they needed to put a stop to that. As far as I was concerned, that spoke to me and they finally "got it". They understood why people loved OMD. It was going up against hordes of monsters and beasts and having a lot of fun killing them in a cartoonish manner. I always enjoyed how "deaths" were portrayed as funny, cartoonish slices of meat and other Rated G portrayals. No zombie gore type of stuff. I loved the humorous quips and remarks that came out of all the various characters both the good guys and the bad guys. OMDU 1.6 was better but still very rough in terms of graphics and playability. There were quite a few performance related bugs which hurt the appeal. But with OMDU 1.7, as far as I am concerned, got it really right. That is the turning point. And with the OMDU 1.8, it is just fabulous. I log in every day. Robot Entertainment is successfully convincing me to log in every day if for no other reason than to get the rewards even if I don't have time or energy to play. Very smart to reward people coming back every day. I think it can get better with OMD 1.9 but I am enjoying OMD 1.8 a lot! And the adding of Steam Achievements is just fabulous. I was initially very skeptical of OMDU up to version 1.6 but Robot turned a significant corner beginning version 1.7. If there were any skeptics before or people who were turned off because it was far from a follow-up of OMD2, I think they need to come back and take a good relook. And those people who might have had negative reviews might end up changing them to positive reviews. Let's do our part and make sure that old negative reviews are updated fairly. Robot should be rewarded with some positive words because they are on the right path. They got beaten up early on and it was justified. But I believe they need to be complimented for being honest, open, and making a huge turn. Reward them with an HONEST positive review if you think they got it right. I am unhappy the Steam review says Mixed because it is unfair. Robot Entertainment deserves better. Because the happier and larger the fanbase, the more all of us benefit individually. OMDU 1.8 is very different now and much improved to OMDU 1.6 and earlier. Believe me! P.S. The number of hours I've played/logged on OMDU on Steam does not count all the unrecorded hours of OMDU outside of Steam.

I want to preface this by saying I absolutely love the OMD series. I've recommended the first two games to pretty much everyone I know and then some. So when I have to say I don't recommend this, it saddens me quite a bit. This game feels like, as a friend of mine put it, a chinese knock off of OMD. The game feels far more shallow and bland than the original two games, and as far as polish goes, it feels like the project of someone who never made a game before in their life. Visually and musically, it looks and sounds great. But when it comes down to the actual gameplay, its like they stripped everything fun or strategic from the game. Now you need to upgrade your traps by collecting hundreds of copies of them to increase their stats minutely. Weapon variety has gone completely out the window, instead replaced by several different characters. Weapons which used to offer different gameplay now are just activatable passive buffs to damage now from what I can tell. Also it seems like headshots are gone? Attacks feel generally weaker, and for some reason theres both a cooldown and mana cost associated to secondary abilities. Which wouldn't be bad, but it seems like the abilities themselves have such a long cooldown that for some characters you couldn't hope to drain your mana enough to ever get down to even half. I will say that the game isn't terrible. Its playable for certain, but it feels incredibly bland and lifeless compared to the other entries. If you absolutely must play a game like this, there are better options. Smite if you want a more PVP focused game, even Dungeon Defenders 2 is a slightly better PVE experience, though not by much. Also, for a game thats been in development for what? A few years now, the game feels incredibly unpolished. I'm not sure why it needs to launch a small..browser? Window for basically handling management of traps and buying stuff, then need to launch a full screen game whenever you actually enter a match and visa versa. Kind of weirdly jaring being pulled to fullscreen and back out again every time you finish or start a stage.

I gave it a chance. pros: -seems it has good potential -variety of heroes and defense towers -variety of enemies (as far as i had gone) -variety of strategies (as in 1 build only, at least as far as i had gone) cons: -open beta, but has cash shop (your way past beta stage imo) -unlocking new heroes should be at a consistant set price, otherwise it looks p2w -unlocking new towers is a chore -upgrading towers is a chore -lot of redundant defenses, and most of them arent that good until its optimized -your stuck with that spike trap and archer wall forever -LEVELING UP (aka, GRINDING) TO DO CONTENT IS A CHORE -the reward system for doing content is lacking, too grindy neutral/thoughts: -map layouts seem well thought but defenses are lacking Likely won't play again.

I loved Orcs must die 2. I loved in that game you had to be clever with kill boxes to rack up as many points as possible. This game changes the focus on it doesn't matter how you kill them, just kill them fast and don't let anyone through which I feel like people would agree with that more than what I like but to each their own. I wish this game wasn't free to play because now that excuses all the microtransaction BS. This game is fun up until you get to level 20. And then it is extremely boring grinding and by that time I lose interest in the game and have no interest in paying the microtransactions. I never got bored of OMD2 and all I wanted was that exact game but to be 3 players. I was initially excited for this game because of that reason but they made the maps unbalanced and sometimes seems like they can only be played by 4 players.