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Equiada
is a world in turmoil. For centuries the gods over saw the
various races and prosperity reigned over the whole planet.
But now the gods have been silent for many generations and
the races distrust of each other, and the wars that have been
fought, have devastated the once proud cities. Now with weapons
of steel and magic the three main races contend with each
other for sole mastery of Equiada...
Rising
Kingdoms
is an above average strategy game. You have the choice of
playing any of the three main races: humans, darklings and
foresters. Each has slightly different strengths and weaknesses.
There are large elements of role playing involved as well.
Each race must build up their townships, which in turn allows
them to build, what turns out to be, relatively small armies.
Helping out each race is a champion who can grow in skill
and strength as the game progresses. Throughout the game the
various races can increase their abilities by increasing their
'glory', or by finding various hidden items. You expand your
empire by conquering the independent colonies. So, basically
if you have played any RTS game since Command and Conquer
you will know what to expect. Games are like jokes, in
that there are only so many original ones and the rest are
variations on a theme. Nothing wrong in that if you get it
right.
The game includes the usual single player campaign with an
above average A.I. opponent, as well as a multi-player option
for up to eight LAN or Internet players. The game graphics
have a Japanese feel to them; I'm not really sure why I felt
that, it just had that feel about it. The action is mostly
shown from a god's eye view. Controlling the characters is
simple and you should be up and running after playing the
tutorial.
The
in-game sound is okay but a little too overly dramatic; this
makes it sound a little silly in places. Game play is okay;
you built your units and go and beat the living daylights
out of the opposition. There is a running narrative throughout
the game. Unfortunately the game was so buggy that it destroyed
any atmosphere that may have existed, even the training mission
crashed, and the game froze at various points. Add to this
the annoyance of a game that won't even shut itself down properly
and you've got hours of frustration ahead of you. To be fair
to the developers this is not unusual for PC games, it must
be the only market where product hardly ever works out of
the box without a number of upgrades.
If
it hadn't been so buggy it might have been a more enjoyable
experience, but as it stands the game just isn't special enough
to overcome this detraction. If you enjoy this kind of game
my advice would be to go to one of the forums to see how the
bug fixes are coming along before purchasing it. It even might
be a good game when they finish it.
Charles
Packer
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£16.99
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£14.99
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£16.99
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All prices correct at time of going to press.
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