Can you reclaim your ancestors’ land?
Thankfully, it isn't just an endless game of chase – you can take the fight to the enemy. The most obvious way to despatch of enemies is to encircle them with a dissecting line – when capturing territory, all enemies inside that area are destroyed. Alternatively, you can capture one-shot catapults, which destroy the nearest tower, or power-ups which might kill a dragon, give you a speed boost, freeze the enemies... you get the idea. In reality though, you'll ignore these, because the only tactic worth using is capturing territory – you need to capture ground anyway, and it destroys all enemies (not just specific types). Ironically then, Fortix isn’t as different to its predecessors as it first appeared.In using that tactic, you’ll notice two things. Firstly, you can’t make long lines – the homing dragon of fiery death will ensure you leave with a fine brûlé. Secondly, capturing vast swathes of territory at once gets big bonuses. So the best approach is to make a succession of little “blocks” right the way across the map, until you get close enough to the other edge to complete the enormous line – taking half of the territory in one fell swoop. It’s so easy that beyond making the blocks too big in a rush to finish, you’ll struggle to lose.
And that’s about it. The campaign is pretty short, with four hours more than enough to complete the game. There are of course the obligatory difficulty levels, which make enemies move faster amongst other things, but they don’t change enough to add replay value.
So, what to make of Fortix? To be fair, it puts itself firmly in the “budget netbook game” category, and makes no grandiose claims. It’s around 100mb for quick downloads, will run on virtually any modern computer, and has the price tag you’d expect, at just £3.49. The problem is, does it justify that cost?
For me, no. After about the first half-hour, I’d already started to tire of Fortix. I used the sole viable tactic over and over again, and lost as a consequence of boredom and rushing, rather than the ingenuity of the challenges. Admittedly it’s cheap, but I’ve spent more time and enjoyed myself more with free browser-based flash games… and you can’t get cheaper than free.
Rating: 4/10
