Orcs Must Die! 3

To be honest, I'm not sure if this deserves its own thread, but OMD2 is perhaps my favorite non-RPG game of all time.

Right now it is Stadia exclusive, which sucks major balls, but you can get a Pro subscription month free just for signing up with a gmail account, and OMD3 is one of the games you get for free with the Pro sub. (Be aware, they pull the "give us your credit card number so that you hopefully forget to cancel and get billed for a month before you realize it" bullshit.) And you can play it in a Chrome browser window. Seems to HAVE to be Chrome, Vivaldi didn't even acknowledge when I clicked the create account button. You can also use a Chromecast or buy an actual controller and shit, but there's a whole thread about the Stadia if you care. Point is, if you really want, you can be started in about 3 minutes.

Anyway, I've been fucking dying for a good OMD game since years ago I tried Unchained for about 5 minutes and decided it was absolute shit. I watched a few videos of people playing 3, and researched the Stadia exclusive part, and of course they can't give an answer for how long that will last. I suppose if they say it is X months, and X is a small number, people might just wait for Steam. Which is what I was going to do. Until I couldn't take it anymore, and I just had to play it last night!

Obviously the Stadia performance will depend heavily upon your internet connection, and within 30 minutes I had had one abrupt drop from game. Weirdly enough, when I started the game again, the game was still going as if it had continued while I was dropped. Not co-op either, just solo. I hate with a passion games that require you to be online, but since Stadia is entirely online there's no avoiding it. At least when I play co-op I might be able to just rejoin quickly as if nothing had happened. To be fair though, in about 2 hours of playing (it was 1:30 am by then ) other than that one drop it was mostly flawless and looked fantastic on a full-screen 1440p monitor.

And as far as the game itself, it is fucking amazing! Of course I miss some of the traps they didn't bring back (floor flame vents, I'm looking at you!), but some of the new ones are awesome too. Like all the other games, it is much harder when you start out because they slowly give you access to better traps, and the level you just did without barricades will be 100% easier after you unlock them, but that's to be expected from an OMD game. Unlocking new traps/weapons/trinkets, grinding for skulls to upgrade them, etc. is all just well done and engaging. They also made it vastly easier to refund skulls, either all at once or just the ones you've spent on a particular trap, so if you are still hurting for skulls and want to change up from, say, ceiling pounders to the swinging mace, you just one-click to refund all the skulls you spent on pounders and then go spend them on the mace. Much, much easier than before. They also have a mechanic where you can't unlock the unique abilities for different traps/weapons/trinkets until you've used them some. Like, you can't buy "does ice damage" on ceiling darts until you've done X damage using them normally. And it isn't really much of a hurdle to make you super-grind, usually in two or three levels you'll have it done already.

Minor spoilers for unlocking shit below. I wouldn't worry about it even if you've never seen the game before, but I figure if I don't warn you, someone will complain.

I'm not a big fan of either of the "trainees" you have to choose from to play at first, and being locked into their chosen weapon, but you unlock all the characters and weapons after finishing the medium (War Mage) difficulty. And technically you can use a different weapon before then, but you waste a trap slot because you HAVE to have their chosen weapon in slot 1 until the unlock. The young girl is annoying, and the young black guy is stuck between trying to sound hip and sounding retarded. So, also annoying. But whatever, you can switch characters later willy-nilly, on your same profile, unlike OMD2 where if you wanted to play Max you had to have one profile, and Sorceress had to be another profile. Here, once you unlock, you can change every time you start a level if you desire. Which is another great feature, if you ask me. Even though I did it, I didn't really like having to slog through all the "you can't have barricades yet" levels twice just to be able to play as Max or Gabriella. Now, unless you feel you need to start fresh again for some reason, you'll only ever need one profile.

Oh, also, war scenarios are a welcome addition. Hundreds of orcs charging at you! That part was really well done, and I'm glad they included it. To be fair, some of the war scenarios are actually easier than some of the normal ones with way fewer orcs. The Boom Barrell Launcer is awesome fun the first time you use it.

Anyway, way too much talk about a game that really doesn't need it, but maybe there are some Orcs Must Die! fans out there who didn't even realize this was released. And thinking up kill boxes, combo generation, etc. might be fun for some people, and we don't need to clutter up the Stadia thread with it.

Quineloe said:

Stadia means it's remote play only right, you don't get the files on your computer?

I wonder if that means the pirated torrent will be delayed 2-3 days.

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Correct.

I have no idea if Stadia games can be pirated. I'd guess that if they are, you still won't ever be able to play co-op, which is most of the fun of these games. I could be wrong though.

EDIT: I suppose I should add that the game has been out for the better part of a month I think. If there aren't torrents of it yet, maybe there won't ever be until it hits Steam.

July 23rd for Steam. Now I'll finally get to play with some friends that were too lazy to even sign up for the free month of Stadia Pro.

I liked the game a lot, but occasionally losing a round because of freezes or crashes from Stadia sucked. And the shittier resolution/response, obviously.

pwe said:

3 is on Steam now. Anyone tried it?

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I played it on Stadia, so I already know what to expect. I love both 1 and 2, and 3 is more of the same for the most part. I feel it is worth my money, but others might disagree.

I did notice that they added a free DLC and several new traps on top of what I played a year ago on the Stadia version. Maybe those got added later to that version, but they are new to me. For example, the ceiling lasers are a new favorite of mine. They also added a new mode, Scramble, which is kind of interesting. Like 5 or 6 randomish maps where each one you have to choose between two permanent debuffs (or chance a reroll and be stuck with what you get), and when you win you pick one of three buffs. It isn't easy. I got majorly fucked on my first run with traps costing more and then choosing double health as my buff...to only immediately get half health as my next debuff...and then my next debuff was "Player always only has 1 health." So literally any shot from anything and I'd die. Fortunately this OMD doesn't penalize you for dying in terms of rift points, you just respawn. But respawning all the fucking time is rough on a war map if you are out in the thick of shit, and the rift is half a mile away up 3 floors in the castle.

I am enjoying this iteration, and I have a friend that enjoys it just as much as I do, so we got one round of co-op in so far and it is just as fun as I remember. But aside from the additions I pointed out above, it is mostly more of the same, so if that doesn't float your boat, wait for a sale.

Gavinmad said:

More of the same of 1, or more of the same of 2? Because I hated 2.

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2. To be honest, it literally feels like an HD upgrade to OMD2 with just some new maps and traps and such. There are the new modes I mentioned, and I totally forgot to mention the War scenarios which are a blast with all the war traps, but honestly it is just a graphical and content upgrade to OMD2. Which is exactly what I wanted. I enjoy both the single and co-op modes. But if you hated 2, you will hate this one pretty much exactly the same.