Orc: Vengeance Review

What is it?

Orc: Vengeance is the latest high-end title published by indie champion Chillingo -- a dungeon crawler and nod to the Diablo-esque family of gameplay. The game puts you in control of Rok, a wayward warchief separated from his orcish clan. The backstory has orcs running the show on a world that has been thoroughly mucked up by man. Our ego and pride freed the dark lord that was previously imprisoned for ages. Typical humans!

Expect the familiar dungeon crawler tropes, including RPG skill and stat boosting, tap-frenzy monster battling and the requisite amount of barrel bashing and loot hoarding. Everything’s included in Orc: Vengeance, from the soft storyline to suitably difficult boss battles.

Did we like it?

Developer Big Cave Games definitely knows how to work up a nice spit-and-shine on a title. The visuals are brilliant with small animations like bat swarms fluttering about and columns crumbling around you to make the levels seem interactive and dense. The character progression is solid as well, with the leveling and mapping of both weapons and skills adding some gameplay variety.

Level design, sadly, is overly straightforward. The visuals, while impressive for mobile, are also far too similar throughout. You’ll fight through the somber gray stage to lovingly be welcomed by… the somber green-gray stage. Some greater variance here would have been welcome. The same could be said for the in-stage design, where Orc seems to take a nod from old action games instead of dungeon crawlers. Expect to be frequently facing this traditional series of events: Enter a room. Get locked in. Fight swarm. Exit room.

Regardless, the negatives don’t outweigh the polished beast-slaying fun. Orc might seem uninspired compared with the latest from Blizzard and it might be lacking the visual splendor of Torchlight but it still stands as an addictive and fun touch-controlled dungeon crawler.

Should you buy it?

If you’re Diablo-ed out but still hankering for that dungeon crawler experience, particularly on the go, Orc: Vengeance will definitely whet your genre appetite. At $2.99 it’s an absurdly reasonably priced. But buy knowing that while you might be getting the best dungeon crawler on iPhone or iPad, there’s still a bit here that is derivative

Source : feeds.ign.com