I guess the best way to start this off it to tell everyone that I don’t believe in "going easy" on Indie game developers just because they’re indie. That being said, I do try to give them a little leeway here and there because I understand that they don’t have access to all the same resources. This on the other hand isn’t one of those times.
Fortix 2 is described by Steam as "a reverse turret defense game." I’ve played some reverse turret defense games before and this doesn’t quite fit that bill. So I’ll need to explain to you just what exactly the gameplay here is.
We will be in control of Fortix, the dashing hero of the game. Fortix starts out on the edge of a square that contains all of the enemy’s territory. Fortix must capture the enemy territory if he wishes to progress in the game. To do this Fortix will have to move into the enemy territory, which results in a line forming behind him, and draw his way back to the edge of enemy territory. There you have it. That is the whole entire game. Sure, there are other things like creatures that try to kill you and power ups to help you. In the end though, they don’t really matter. Creatures don’t add much of a challenge and power ups aren’t all that helpful.
Fortix 2 is more like an un-fun version of capture the flag if you ask me. Still maybe… just maybe, the story of this game can earn it some massive points to help make up for its incredibly shallow gameplay.
Our hero Fortix must travel to blah blah blah and defeat the evil blah blah blah to restore his kingdom blah blah blah. I just filled you in one the whole story right there, kind of sad huh? So yet again the game has failed to show any real effort on its part. Let’s see if anything about this game can give it some points.
How about the graphics? Sure they’re nice; well nice in the way that it doesn’t hurt me to look at them nice. Do they catch my interest at all with a unique style or immense amounts of detail that show an obvious love from the artist for this game? Not…at…all. So yet again Fortix 2 has let us down and this time it’s in the one department that casual games never mess up.
So now let us move onto the audio of the game. It’s there. That’s about the best I can say for it honestly. Sure it isn’t bad, but then again it isn’t good either, it’s just "there." Almost like that awkwardly shy kid all of us went to school with who was perfectly content to just float on by unnoticed (No offense intended, I was this kid for a couple years of my school life).
So how about extra features or bonuses, surely they can help Fortix 2 rise above its underwhelming gameplay, story, graphics, and audio?
Okay so Fortix 2 does have one little bonus. After annoying the bird on the title screen enough, we unlock Zombie Mode. Wait, wait don’t forgive this game just yet. I’m just as much as a sucker for zombies as the next guy who thinks up ways to survive a zombie apocalypse. Sadly though the zombie mode offers just about nothing to the game. In zombie mode all the normal creatures are replaced by zombies and the towers by graves. Capture the graves to stop them from producing more zombies and you win. Easy enough since zombies are slower than any other creature in the game. Yes I understand that zombies are supposed to be slow but they made this mode way too easy. This is one of those rare times when adding zombies to a game doesn’t make it better, in fact in kind of makes it worse!
We haven’t even hit the worse part of the game yet either. This is the kind of game that I could understand somebody playing if it was free, maybe even if it cost a couple of bucks. Fortix 2 isn’t cheap though, this is a $10 game! Ten of you hard earned dollars spent on something like this? I think not, my good friends.
This brings about a couple of questions though. How did the first game ever do well enough that it spawned a sequel? If a sequel is essentially an upgraded version of the first game then what must the first Fortix have to offer? I just don’t understand this, it’s like how some movies (I’m looking at you Human Centipede) or books (Twilight, nuff said) spawn sequels even when they’re horrible.
Forix 2 is a stain on the name "Indie." I challenge indie developers to really push themselves when creating games. So many times a group of people think that the game industry is an easy one to enter as long as you have mediocre coding skills and an artist. This isn’t the case though. Instead of being like these groups I hope that we will see more indie developers like Mojang, groups of people that really love what they do and want to produce a product that shows them at their best!