Hordes of Orcs

First things first; this game is freakin' awesome. No doubt, it's a winner. As is so often the case simplicity and twisted humour wins the day again with us simple SGR reviewer folk. Hordes of Orcs is a game of castle defense and tower carnage, we've all seen these before, but this one is better than the vast majority. It sounds good, looks great and plays like a dream - it's addictive to digital crack levels too.

For the uneducated and otherwise tower-defense-ignorant we'll explain what Hordes Of Orcs entails; wave after wave of progressively more hardcore Orcs stream forth from a glowing portal (the developers suggest the village elders in the game's castle call "The Glowing Portal of Really Bad Things That We Should Have Bricked-Up a Long Time Ago", Terry Pratchett like referencing FTW!) your mission is thus clear and succinct, stop the big green nasty Orc types from reaching your castle and doing whatever it is such creatures do when they sack castles, presumably rape/eat/pillage/smell bad/make the place look untidy etc.

There is nothing like the smell of flaming Orc in the morning.

It's not often I become addicted to a game while still sitting in my boxer shorts before my morning cup of tea, but today I did. Hordes of Orcs sucked me right in immediately. The strategic element of tower placing and 'which towers to place where' should not be underestimated by a casual observer, if you want it to be, this is a very in depth game as well as a fantastic novelty. Indeed, even as I write this I am actually just thinking about where best to place my flame turrets the next time I play. Hordes of Orcs is hard casual gaming at it's best.

And Hordes of Orcs doesn't stop there with just the classic 'castle defense mode', indeed it has lots of other game modes, including Capture the Flag; because as the game points it "every game is better with a capture the flag mode". They couldn't be more correct. As if this game needed more lastability, here it comes steaming in with yet more ways to enjoy it. Hordes of Orcs boastsa massive six game modes; Open Warfare, Crossroads, Capture The Flag, Maze Defense, gem Drop and Pachinko - all as entertaining as each other.

"Kill the Orcs, slay the Orcs, destroy the Orcs!" - 3 Inches of Blood lyrics go well with this game.

I think you are probably getting that it plays great and is generally going down quite well here at SGR... well kids we know you now expect us to point out some massive flaw or problem we found that the game play over comes nonetheless, well, not this time, the creators of Hordes Of Orcs don't disappoint on any level, it really does looks great too. There is something deeply satisfying about setting your defenses and zooming in to "3D mode" and watching as the various Orcs, all of whom are modelled fantastically, are set alight/radiated/frozen or simply shot at with a hail of arrows.

A lot of work has gone into the style of this game; there is something humorous at it's very core and it's good. We love the funky music track which permeates in the background as well. Damn it, there isn't anything we don't love about this game!

Just, go buy it, we wanna play more...

Summary:

Stop the Orcs doing whatever it is Orcs do using a variety of wicked awesome weapons and spells in a variety of different game modes. You really can't go wrong with this game, we can't find a single flaw in it's logic. The best game we've reviewed this year. Addictive, entertaining, looks great - it can even be run in a window and played when you should be working. Fantastic stuff all around.

Where Can I Get It?

http://freeverse.com/games/game/?id=7019

SGR Rating:


98%

Stars!

Without a doubt Stars! is one of the best strategy/empire building games I have ever played - despite the fact I remember playing it as far back as 1996!

The basic premise of the game picks up where a lot of Empire Building games (like C-Evo) seem to end; you have just achieved the ability to colonise other worlds - you start the game with an unmanned probe and a colony ship commanded by a race of your own design - with pro's and con's according to what traits you choose (examples of which are "Inner Strength", "War Monger" and my person favorite "Space Demolitions"). It is then your duty to colonise other worlds, research technology to aid you in this noble quest, build up a trade infrastructure and build fleets of custom designed warships and planetary defenses to protect your newly forged empire against the rampant AI - which have amusing sci-fi satirical names; such as the Turlindrones and the Kirks.

Stars! is highly customisable; you can set the "win parameters" to be many things; colonise 100% of all planets, wipe out all other races - there is a great degree of customizability within Stars! right from get go up through to actual combat. Every aspect of the game can be altered from map size to planet and player positioning criteria - you can even create "Battle Plans" for your combat units to refer to when engaging specific enemy targets. You can also set the difficulty (easy, medium and impossible effectively) and traits of the AI; some "hyper expand" some hide within small but well defended Empires - some wander around rather aimlessly. You have to get to know your enemy within each individual game. Hardcore stuff.

One of my ship designs, I called it a Battlestar, you see what I did there?

Stars! features some of the most strategic in depth game play I've ever be drawn in by; wars can last weeks playing a few hours a day, and long term battle plans have to reflect this. But at no time does it ever feel 'forced'. You plan because you need to, and the planning remains just as enjoyable as the final alien annihilating big push.

You can also play it with friends via email.

So, this game sounds great huh? Well, there are two problems. The first, it looks like this:

Fear my Empire... That's the bits behind the blue lines and er... blue dots.

Second of all, it's almost impossible to find on-line for download. Indeed after writing this review we couldn't find a link for it at all... Doh.

Summary

Fantastic game.

Where Can I Get It?

We can't find a download site online, but drop us an email and we might be able to send you the original shareware version.

SGR Rating


95%

C-Evo

C-Evo is billed quite simply as a freeware empire building game for Windows. In my opinion that sells it somewhat short. This is a great game.

As with other empire building games you start with a small settlement and some eager manly outdoors types willing to go and make you another one. You improve your technology and eventually progress to "space travel and the colonisation of other planets" which is the eventual goal of this game.

There is a wide variety of technology to be developed and explored - I am pretty sure I had steam powered nuclear attack cruisers at one stage in a game. On top of this there are a number of political systems to implement - each with their own pro's and con's. You can even create your own 'tribes' (including the in game graphics for them) allowing personalisation of your nation; which just adds to the longevity.

The creators of the game would probably like me to now go on and on about how great the AI is and how it "doesn't play to the player's actions" but has "it's own agenda and plays as another human player would" - I am not going to do that despite the fact that they seem to think that that's this games main 'selling point'.

If you want to win, I suggest making a starting position like this one.

Indeed I am of the opinion that the fact the computer 'plays like a human' makes the game extremely hard for a casual gamer to get on with. News flash for developers; the computer has the ability to make 45,933 (et al) choices per turn for each and every one of it's cities and units etc; most humans, can't be bothered! This life fact gives the AI somewhat of an advantage over all but the most hardcore gamer and is likely the reason that a lot of empire building games adopt the 'reactive' AI over the 'human like AI'. I digress...

Regardless of it's difficulty C-Evo is a very entertaining game. You can even make your own maps to play on; designing the geographical features of a whole world which you can then march all over with fascist boots or liberate in a girly democratic manner. It's up to you.

Summary

Great game if you like empire building. Don't get too attached though for reasons best known to the developer there is an arbitrary 3000AD time limit - you lose your empire no matter how well you are doing. Doh.

Where Can I Get It?

http://c-evo.org/

SGR Rating


85%

Battlecruiser Millenium

On the surface of it this game sounds very cool indeed. You get to fly one of a number of large 'carrier like' space vessels (this is what convinced me to give it a go in the first place - I was searching for some modern incarnation of the classic game "Carrier Command" - the fact it supposedly had Elite like qualities made it all the better) and do whatever you want in an expansive universe. You can even choose from a number of races and careers. So far, so RPG-Tastic right?

The game in actuality falls short for one primary reason; it's way too big for it's own boots. Although the concept is sound, free form roaming space combat and exploration, the actual implementation falls several light years short of it's intended target.

But bluntly; nothing happens in this game.

Sure you can fly to a planet, spend some time convincing the somewhat over complex and fiddly interface you want to take a shuttle down to the planet, then convince the shuttle to let you deploy a tank, then drive around a bit... in the nothing. But nothing ladies and gents, is still nothing. I spent 45 minutes flying from one part of an empty planet to another. Why? I have no idea. I think in my total of eight hours playing the game (and willing it to be good) I came across one spawn of "enemy". That is not a good use of my game playing time really when I could be fragging badguys left right and center (strategically or otherwise) on any number of other similar games where, and this is the kicker; ACTION ISN'T AN AFTERTHOUGHT!

A Satallite Dish... in the middle of the expansive nothing that is this game.

I'd dearly love to be able to say that this game is great. But it just isn't. It should have been. Perhaps it was just several years too late? It's really hard to tell. Either way...

Summary

If you enjoy wasting time on a massive game, with no game satisfaction what-so-ever, give it a pop - doesn't sound like you? Don't bother. It looks pretty enough and runs well; it's just a pity there is no game to actually play.

Where Can I Get It?

http://www.3000ad.com/downloads/bcm.shtml

SGR Rating


35%