Quick Review: Fortified!

Oooh, more games taking inspiration from the Olden times – sure, sign me up.

That bazooka will do wonders against aliens.

Made by Siege Camp and released to Steam on February 3rd, 2016, Fortified! is a peculiar combination of a shooter and a… tower defense? Yep. Ever heard of that combo before? Neither have I. Featuring a very 1950s comic books-esque aesthetic, the game takes place as aliens descend to invade Earth. There are four heroes to choose from, all of them inspired by popular archetypes of the era. After you’ve chosen your hero, pick two weapons, pick at least one form of infantry (up to 6), then jump into a level.

Because as we know, aliens all move
around in spider robots.

Between waves (which are sent by pressing H), you set your “towers” (the troops) around the current map. When the wave plays out, you can move around and shoot at the enemies with your own weapons, swapping between them with E if need be. A gauge fills up over time, and when it’s full you can press Q to use your current hero’s special move. The goal is to protect the “base”, which is a rocket ship that the aliens are trying to destroy; if the base’s HP hits 0, you lose. If the hero’s health is down to 0, they’ll get up after five seconds during which you cannot have any effect on the game.

An interesting aspect is that you can command your troops around; you can ask them to keep the positions they were placed in, or you can ask them to defend the base, follow your main hero, or head straight towards the aliens and robots that are coming forward. This results in a lot of strategic options as well as the possibility to change your plans on a whim if things get dire.

The base ship is under attack?
Send all the soldiers out to defend it!

They're growing smarter...

You discover new weapons and troops as you play through the campaign mode, which is set over 12 levels. At the end of every level, you gain experience based on your number of kills, earning skill points that can be spent on upgrading existing troops and guns, or unlocking new ones for use in the upcoming levels. The aliens are no slouches, either, with new types of enemies showing up over time (such as flying ones), forcing you to diversify your methods of attack. The levels are available first on Normal difficulty, then Hard, then Insane.

More than single-player, though, the game actively encourages multiplayer co-op play. In all modes, each player has a certain limit of troops they can place on the field, thus forcing everyone to work together in order to defeat the waves of enemies. I imagine waves are harder the more people play – with the number of enemies being adjusted for the number of players and units.

Sometimes, if the troops are busy...
Better take the fight in your own hands.

A pretty cool idea – I don’t think I ever saw another third-person shooter tower defense before – and there’s a couple of nice features here. Four characters to choose from, twelve levels over three difficulties, and plenty of multiplayer options (that is, of course, if you can find people to play with, as the game is over six years old now and somewhat abandoned – but at least, the option exists). Game-wise, I felt some frame rate issues (though I hate whenever I say that because I don’t know whether the issue comes from the game or my computer). Also, while the strategic options are interesting when controlling your troops, you can’t just assign one task to a type of troop and a different task to another; it’s all or nothing. And although an interesting addition, having four characters to choose from unfortunately doesn’t lead to a lot of variety, as all four play relatively the same outside of their special move activated with Q.

So yeah, not without its downsides, but an interesting one if you’re intrigued by another unlikely combination of genres. It’ll be missing a lot due to the lack of a player base for co-op, but the single-player mode is still there and pretty fine.

Fortified is available on Steam for 14.99$ USD.