Totally HORDEicultural.... If you can find someone to play with, that is.
I love Horde mode in Gears of War 2. It's my favourite online gaming mode in any game of the 360's history. The ability to co-operate with other players whilst being rationed with ammo and supplies makes things really tense and interesting, as you try hard to keep things well maintained. Fortified! is a very similar take on this great game mode, but can it hold its own against such a classic institution?
I'll be honest, it tries very hard and it does do a great job in maintaining a good feel and it plays very well. It is based around the 60's when alien conspiracies were commonplace and it is done in a comic book style to reflect the period. You have four characters to select from (Soldier, Astronaut, Agent and Rocket Scientist) and it is up to you and your comrades (should you be lucky enough to find any, but more on that later) to stop the alien menace from attacking the rocketship target at the end of each of the 12 stages.
It is a fairly simple premise, but the tactics and strategies are more in-depth than that. You can unlock different weapons, artillery and soldiers as you progress through the levels. These in turn can have alternate primary functions which can also be awarded to you through getting through the game and getting tokens. Even the main characters have special abilities you can access as you go, so there is a lot of thought going on. You have a set amount of cash to start with which you can use to bolster your defence and once you are happy with what you've got you start the wave and jolly well get on with it.
You can also command your foot soldiers to group together or target specific areas dependent on what is going on at the time. It does get quite tactical at times, which is what you want in a game of this type. Add to that the decent audio and visual bombardment as well and you think that this has got the legs to be pretty damned good, but then there are the odd issues that hold this back and it is almost criminal that it does because this may well be a simple game with not a great deal of content, but it plays the way you want it to.
The problem that bothers me the most is the fact that you cannot get a good connected game online with others when you want to and God knows I tried. A fair few times I wanted to play with others on this, thinking it would be a great laugh. The one time out of the many I tried to get people proved to be extremely laggy and ended up with me buggering off because it was genuinely unplayable. In a game like this that relies heavily on audience participation you feel that this is just painful to the enjoyment and indeed this is true here.
Fortified! has so much to offer, but the lack of player interaction from other areas hampers it a lot and turns it into something which may have an enjoyable play here and there, but no longevity whatsoever, especially when you can pick up Gears of War 2 so cheap and get a good campaign alongside the great multiplayer. A missed opportunity with an online connection that's a bit alien to most.
Thanks to the Xbox Community for allowing us to review this game.