Fortix 2 Review

When Fortix 2 landed on my desk, I approached it not expecting too much from what looked like a cheap and cheerful budget priced title available on Steam. The game’s developers, Nemesys Games, are an independent outfit who have been working on it from their headquarters in Budapest, Hungary, since 2004. The team of 8’s previous releases have been in the racing and casual genres, but Fortix 2 has managed to make it as an IGC DICE finalist in 2011. Impressive stuff.

Fortrix 2 is a cross between the gameplay of Qix and a backwards turret-style defense game. Players control Sir Fortrix who battles the evil that Xitrof, the dark wizard, has spread over the land. The aim in the game is to conquer areas of the field to lift its curse. There are 30 levels spanning three different environments, numerous enemies and multiple game modes that offer hours of gameplay!

Once you have selected to start a campaign, the first option you have is to run through the tutorial, which is highly recommended as it gives you the basics of the controls and gameplay. To win in Fortrix 2, you must draw boxes that capture areas of the field of gameplay.As you draw these boxes you have to try and capture things like catapults that destroy cannons that are shooting at you. However, you need to complete each of your boxes before anything, like canonballs or even a dragon, hits them, as if you don’t and your red line is hit as you’re running for your life, literally, you loose a life.

As you start to capture areas of field and special items such as stars that give you bonus items like extra running speed for about 20 seconds, you gain points and edge closer to capturing the whole field back. You can use either the arrow keys to play, or a mouse, using the left mouse button to draw your boxes. I chose the keys as I found the mouse very fiddly.

The graphics in Fortix 2 are in a basic 2D style, nicely drawn, but nothing fancy, but, hey, this is a puzzle game, one that even your granny might enjoy. There are different types of enemies to avoid, and, of course, capture for bonus points. There are dragons that just fly around, bone dragons that were summoned by Xitrof when he heard you had entered the land, and many more baddies you need to avoid who start to appear as you progress through levels. Bone dragons can smell you from miles away, for example, and as soon as you leave your base line they will swarm towards you. The base line is your area of complete safety where you can not be harmed and forms the border line around the area you have captured. There are also keys that need to be collected, these are used to open gates that give you access to other areas of the level you need to capture.

Now lets talk about Zombies! Yup, you heard me. These have been included in Fortrix 2 as well. To access this hidden Easter egg, you have to diligently harass the semi-musical bird that is on the title screen with your mouse. You just keep making it chirp until it gets fed up and suddenly you open up the game again but this time, you’re in a world filled with the walking dead as your enemies. Watch out though, as when the zombies arrive, the rules of Fortix 2 change, with the undead able to hurt you on your base line.

This game was a really nice surprise. It’s a basic idea, but one that works very well. I surprisingly really enjoyed it, and it’s refreshing to see that simple games are sometimes better than all those modern games that developers seem to just churn out with fancy graphics. Sometimes they forget about gameplay;a key feature for a good game. I feel that Fortix 2 would make a great port over to the iPad or some sort of touch screen tablet. It would work well and could have the potential to be the next Angry Birds. If you are looking for a quick and simple game to play every now and again, this is a game for you.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary PC code was provided to Bonus Stage for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to press@4gn.co.uk.