The tower defense genre has taken a few big steps towards the limelight in recent years. The online flash-based tower defense games I tried never did much to me, but the superstar known as Plants vs. Zombies stole my heart and was responsible for many wasted hours at work. The latest trend in tower defense is adding a shooter element, either in the first or third person, which allows you to actively take part in combat, instead of letting the towers do all the work for you. Games such as Sanctum or Dungeon Defenders dabbled in this new trend (with varying grades of success), and now it's Texas' Robot Entertainment (Halo, Age of Empires Online) to try their hand at this. Here, orky-orky-orky! Orcs Must Die! is a game in which, well, orcs must die. The game puts you in the robe of a young War Mage, the last living member of a Mage's Order which swore to protect the human world against the evil orcs, coming from a parallel dimension. Your mission, then, is to protect 24 fortresses against the marauding orcs and prevent them from entering the Rifts, which are a sort of big, blue portals through which the creatures can reach the human lands.

Each fortress has one or more gates, through which the orcs will come tumbling in, and one or two rifts. A faint, blue line shows you the path the orcs will take to reach the portals, which you must prevent from happening by any means necessary. First of all, you have all sorts of traps and killing devices at your disposal. You can lay down spike traps, tar pits which slow down your enemies, explosive barrels, cannons, wall-mounted arrow traps, spring traps, which are perfect for flinging orcs into acid pits and a whole bunch of funny traps which will spell disaster for the invaders. You can also employ archers, who will rain down arrows on any enemy within their range, and armored paladins, who will protect the rifts against anyone who comes too close for comfort. Of course, you need money for all this, so you won't be able to afford to lay down tons of traps at the beginning. You receive money for killing enemies and also a starting, rather small pile of cash. If a particular stage has two entrances, you won't be able to afford to reinforce them both with traps and you won't even know through which one will the orcs come first, so the best you can do is fortify one entrance better than the other and hope for the best. This is where you here comes in, because, if you want to have any shot at success, you have to get your hands dirty and jump in the fray. Your hero comes equipped by default with a magical crossbow, which will be responsible for a lot of headshots, and also a bladestaff for melee combat. Later on, you'll unlock three magical amulets, which grant you the power of wind, ice and fire, respectively, so you will be able to shoot fireballs at the enemies, freeze them into place or blow them away into a nearby lava hole. Also, later levels will allow you to choose one of three talent trees, each giving you specific bonuses, such as more effective traps and guardians or better magical offensive abilities.

The catch is that you only have a limited number of slots in which you can equip weapons, amulets and traps, so you need to carefully study the stage and what fortification possibilities it offers and also see what kinds of enemies you'll have to deal with. There are more than just your average axe-wielding or crossbow orcs; you will also have to face huge ogres, which can take a large amount of damage, flying demons which are not affected by traps or the fast little kobolds which zoom past you, trying to reach the rifts. Each wave of enemies (out of a total of 8, 10, 12, etc) is different and they get tougher and tougher to withstand, so you always need to be alert and constantly reinforce your castle with more and more traps as the cash starts flowing in. Enemies sometimes drop gold coins and health potions, but this happens pretty rarely, which is why you need to keep a close eye on your health bar and maybe even retreat near the rift, which will quickly replenish your life.

I am allergic to arrows! :( Each of the 24 levels is different in layout and defense possibilities (some levels even come with hot oil cauldrons or ballistas), but other than that, they all look the same> the standard, run-of-the-mill fairy tale castles, with towers, bridges and chandeliers. I would have liked to see more variety in the style of the castles. On the other hand, I loved the nameless hero of the game. I started calling him Bruce Campbell because of his striking resemblance to the Evil Dead star and his funny one-liners. The cartoonish graphics and humor fit Orcs Must Die! extremely well. Your hero is very chatty, often praising himself for the ingeniousness of his trap setup and cracking jokes about the orcs. Even the green monsters manage to be hilarious, packing a bunch of silly lines (even though I had a harder time understanding them in the commotion of the levels) and jumping around in pain whenever they are engulfed in flames. By contrast, the occasional ogres and their bigger, more heavily armored brethren, fire ogres and armored ogres, are much more threatening, giving you serious cause for concern when they break through your defenses.

The singleplayer campaign is fluid and interesting. Each level unlocks a new trap, guardian or talent tree, managing to keep you glued to your computer screen, eager to see the new toys you're awarded. Also, completing each level earns you one to five skulls, depending on how many enemies evaded you and entered the rifts. These skulls add up and, in a separate menu, you will be able to purchase permanent upgrades for your traps. Of course, some are more useful than other, so the upgrades you choose will mostly depend on your style of play and on which traps you use the most. Once you beat the campaign on the normal difficulty mode, you can start it again on the much more punishing Nightmare Mode, which is kind of neat if you want to squeeze a few more hours out of the game. Apprentice, empty my bed pan! My only gripe with Orcs Must Die! is that the difficulty tends to vary drastically among various levels. Some of the fortresses were a piece of cake to defend, while others had me in the ropes, barely managing to complete them. The lack of a multiplayer mode will also disappoint many people, but I, for one, didn't really miss it all that much and had a lot of fun by myself. And this is the keyword when it comes to Orcs Must Die!: fun. Robot Entertainment's new game has captivated me with its silly, childish humor, fast paced action and the numerous ways of slaughtering the murderous orcs. For only 10,99� on Steam, Orcs Must Die! is worth every penny, delivering hours of entertainment, tactical thinking and hysterical laughter. You must buy! .chester