Hinterland - Orc Lords Review @ Cheatcc

Cheat Code Central has a review of Hinterland: Orc Lords. I'm still not clear on the difference to the original release but the score for this one is 4/5:

Orc Lords blends RGP, RTS, and empire-building elements into one solid package. The game doesn't break new ground but it knows how to get the best yield by cultivating familiar territory. It will help to have experience with classic RPGs, because you're on your own here. There is no in-game manual or tutorial. You're thrown into the game to sink or swim. Fortunately, the game is fairly easy to learn. There are an assortment of options that will allow you to tailor the game to suit your tastes and expertise. You adjust various parameters of difficulty such as number of enemies in a particular attack, the length of game, and choice of 20 playable characters with different abilities. With a few tweaks you can make the game as easy or as challenging as you desire.

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More information.

When someone says about a game "this is one of those casual..." I check it up and in 99% cases it is one of those imbecile (sorry for such opinion of mine) hidden object games.

Excuse me! But if there is a casual game different from reversi, tetris or solitaire, that certainly isn't screenstareandglare one. I mean... Who plays those HOGs anyway? Kids that can't read?

Hinterland is not a real RPG. It has only elements from RPG. But it is my favorite casual game. Casual, yes. I play it shortly, then I turn it off. In a few days I do it again, and again, and again... Anytime I want to relax.

I don't have Orc Lords, but I'm getting it definetly.

Well, when you do, tell me what the hell it is. They've really gone out of their way to not explain exactly what the differences (if any) are between the original release and Orc Lords.

I read that "review" and there is nothing in there that tells me the guy played a new version of Hinterland. Everything he said is exactly what I have played in the original except for the switch of orcs vs humans and he didn't use enough description to make me believe he has even seen a review copy. There is nothing going on at the game's forum and I heard it has been delayed to June. He did say something that got my attention, and that was there was the ocasional dungeon. There are no dungeons in the original, it is played out on a flat 2d screen and I never heard anything about dungeons, not that one single developer has showed up to say boo. There has been quite a turn-around at the site compared to the games release last year when someone was always there to answer any question or give hints. It feels like the game was turned over to a large, money grubbing company to me.

joxer said:

When someone says about a game "this is one of those casual..." I check it up and in 99% cases it is one of those imbecile (sorry for such opinion of mine) hidden object games.

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Some excellent games of recent years would fall under 'casual' ... Puzzle Quest, various stuff for the Wii, Portal, Plants vs. Zombies, Braid, etc.

It goes a little beyond the mention of dungeons. While that's one of the first major things that sticks out like a sore thumb, there's a bit more to this review than simply that.

Ive logged quite a few days in this game, and the things mentioned here that were not in the previous version were -
- being able to pick the # of attackers that will raid your settlement
- being able to choose a magician, or i assume a "caster"-type of character
- as mentioned before, playing as an orc, and dungeon raiding
- apparently needing food for more than just simply keeping people around. According to this review sustenance is needed even to survive yourself. If there's nobody producing food, you die!
- dialogue. The below quote describes character interaction, there was none of this in the original

Throughout your travels to new areas of the kingdom, you'll encounter a variety of characters. Some of them will want to join you on your adventure and other will just converse with you. There's plenty of dialogue here, most of it’s quite lighthearted, even funny at times. The NPCs portray a wide variety of stereotypes from the bumbling magician to the disgruntled dwarf.

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Dont remember ever seeing that.

Here's another review that supports some of the facts, not the questionable dungeons claim tho - http://diehardgamefan.com/2009/03/17/review-hinterland-orc-lords-pc/

So if these reviews are legit, makers did indeed add a bit of stuff to the game. I personally dont trust anyone titled "cheat central" anyway, i promptly ran ccleaner and ran a malware check as soon as I left that site. The other site seems ok. As mentioned previously, for a game with active forums that would be a great place to get people riled up about the game, the devs have been totally silent on this matter which is strange.

I might pick it up if I see it