Developer/Publisher: EarthWork Games | Overall: 8.0/10
Forts is described as a “physics-based RTS where foes design and build custom bases.” Think what happens when you mash Angry Birds with Worms and you’ll get the idea of what Forts actually is. While there is custom base building, it doesn’t inspire much imagination, and ends up being a means to an end rather than going all Minecraft on it. Satisfying wins, weaponry, and the humorous single player story make this title a recommendable choice to play.
To cut to the chase, I enjoyed what I played of Forts. While it isn’t that expansive in terms of number of weapons, the style of combat and the race to upgrade is actually quite a unique blend from this perspective. The physics are very goofy when you have to deal with them on your side, but are quite entertaining when your enemy’s base is exploding. Though there isn’t a huge variety, the weapons all feel like they have a purpose, have their own powerful upgrades and base design actually affects how they operate.
Unfortunately the biggest standout is that base design is a clunky mess. It is very hard to expand your base, and there’s not much to help you with understanding how you should and shouldn’t build. Your expansions can only attach to ground that is classified as “Foundation,” of which there is very little of. Otherwise, everything else will be hanging off your previous expansions and if you get too risky, things will break off or in the most catastrophic moments, take other pieces of your base with it. This obviously is meant to reward the better base-builder since both sides will be rushing to build a better base to destroy the others, but it can be frustrating when you don’t know how else you are supposed to build.
The ultimate goal of battles is to destroy your opponent’s Reactor. The Reactor is located in different places in the base, but is usually in a protected location. It is also your objective to defend yours until you destroy the enemy’s. Most of the single player levels challenge you to think of different ways to build your base/weaponry/etc to defeat the AI before they kill you. The AI seems competent enough on Normal and can still be a worthwhile challenge. There are also Easy and Hard modes, if you are looking to tune the difficulty a bit. Other than Single Player, you can play in Skirmish or Sandbox modes. Skirmish is essentially an easy way to play a 1-on-1 fight against the AI on a chosen map. Sandbox mode is essentially a “practice” mode where you can build as much as you like and control both players. Forts also seems like it would be built for multiplayer, as the game is a competition between two sides. While multiplayer can be fun, it is mostly hit or miss.
The way to join a game is through a Lobby system, rather than matchmaking. Teams are set, people chat, and then everyone has to ready-up in the Lobby. This would be fine as an additional mode if there were a lot of options to consider or modify, but the only impactful factor here is in the map selection. It seems like the game would benefit immensely from matchmaking as its default to join a game and there would be less downtime in trying to find and join a game, with a benefit of randomizing the map. There are quite a few different maps, with some that require unique tactics. All of these maps are available through Skirmish and Sandbox modes as well.
With that said, there are other issues with the way the Lobby system technically works. People may forget to Ready up fast enough delaying the pace of getting into a game. If someone disconnects, everyone is kicked back to the lobby without warning, and anyone can pause the game without notifying who is doing the pausing. If one player quits after pausing, then all players get kicked to the lobby. Even though there are no stats or any sort of meta game to worry about, people who don’t like losing would probably just quit before letting it play out and it spoils the experience for the other people playing. Joining a lobby game is also hard because if you don’t connect you just get booted back to the server list with no explanation and you may still see the game you tried to join in the server list. There also doesn’t seem to be a “random” map option, and the couple of times I tried adding an AI player they just didn’t do anything. I played a couple of multiplayer matches with Unnamedhero, and while he hadn’t been through the single player mode at all, he began to pick up on a few of the mechanics pretty quickly after a couple of matches. While the tactics and buildings are generally simple, when you are in an arms race against other players, the mastery of all of the mechanics will make for the ultimate challenge within the confines of this title.
The art and music are generally pleasing, and the sound effects are satisfying, especially when your enemy’s reactor explodes. The single player mode has some very relevant political/war humor; very tongue-in-cheek. For example, a reference to “Facts News” is an obvious play on “Fox News” and a biting commentary on the network itself. Too bad Bill O’Reilly wasn’t a playable character. Or would it be Phil O’Rightly? I don’t know. It probably would have been more fun to have more parodies of political/historical figures but instead we got generic commanders and other characters instead.
Forts is pretty recommendable to anyone who enjoys Worms/Angry Birds or are intrigued by a genre mash-up between the two. I would not recommend the game to leg fetishists, though. There are not a lot of legs in the game. But, there are explosions. Conciliatory prize to leg fetishists looking for a game? I Report, You Decide.
