The Music Tracks, will save you from the sounds. Kind of boring to be exact, but you are treated to excellent voice acting. This terrain sometimes makes the difference between a grand victory and cold defeat. For example, using archers atop a hill, facing a force of barbarians on the bottom, your archers will likely come out victorious since they have the advantage of being on higher ground, while the barbarians have to climb up to reach your units. The 3D terrain in Kingdoms is looking to play a major role in how you plan your strategies and carry them out. An interesting idea that has never been done before (in my knowledge) but that in the end just doesn't work. There is no loyalty and no chance to build a liking to any one side. You live and die with your allegiance.īy bouncing the player back and forth between the four sides you become more of a mercenary who seeks only to win the mission at hand. You learn the build proficiencies and the overall weaknesses of certain units. You know the story and you are able to learn all the intricacies that come with that side. When you play as one side, you know exactly whom the enemy is and what you want to do. It robs the player of his partisanship and his sense of direction. So just after you finish smiting the evil lord Lokken, you must suddenly take up his banner and push back the armies you just controlled. The scenarios play through in chronological order, but you bounce back and forth between good and evil. In TA: Kingdoms the side you play changes with each scenario. Unlike MOST simulation games of this nature, you are not allowed to choose one side and then play through the story as that side. My only complaint with the story mode is the constant switching of sides. The atmosphere created by the voice actors and the artwork is superb. The single player story mode has a fascinating plot, and the in-between sequences are populated with exquisite artwork. Warcraft 2 made much better use of magic and the combinations that could be done with certain types of magic in WC2 really set WC2 apart from TA: Kingdoms. I was a bit disappointed with magic in the game, as I found that magic did not play as much of a role as I had hoped. It definitely does not feel like a "Total Annihilation" game. Maybe it was the atmosphere, maybe the types of units, but the Warcraft feel never left me. Gameplay itself was intriguing, but reminded me far too much of Warcraft. As I stated earlier, the AI is just a summoning machine. I don't know if the people at Cavedog tweaked the AI or not, but something needs to be done to make it stronger. I found the AI to be nothing special and nowhere near as challenging as the TA AI. To summon more than one, you hold the "shift" key down and begin to click on the places where you would like the animal to be summoned (similar to the way you built structures in TA).īelieve it or not the can lead to some interesting strategies as you can, in effect, build a wall of creatures. To do this, you select the creature you want and the tamer will begin to "summon" it. For example, a "Beast Tamer" can "summon" certain creatures. There remains the usual TA way of building a unit (clicking on a building several times to produce X amount of units), but now you can also build certain units the same way you'd build buildings in TA. Play Free on Cavedog Entertainment's Boneyards, a new online gaming community.īuilding units are intriguing. Hardware support provides enhanced graphics and special effects. Lay siege to castles and cities filled with wondering monsters and magical life forms. Campaign through 3D environments that include lush forests, marshes, rolling hills and swamps. Command vast armies of skeletal archers, undead foot soldiers, magic-casting wizards and dragon riders. Play as the monarch of one of four unique civilizations, each with its own combat strategies. The element that each commands has a direct affect on the types of units they can employ/build. The game is based on the power struggle between 4 brothers and sisters, each who command a certain element (Earth, Water, Air and Fire). With Kingdoms set in a mystical fantasy world, expect even more and will again lunge into a et of new concepts. The massive amounts of soldiers included and still provided through the Cavedog's web site, featuring more downloadable units, and maps constantly enhanced the RTS genre and overstepped technology boundaries. The graphics being revolutionary in nature, with 3D units, structures, and a true three-dimensional ground, where units will climb hills and maneuver around objects. Cavedog's Total Annihilation real time strategy series just released in 97 and 98, showed to be a very impressive game.
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