
Oh, boy… Walls of Rome is one of those games which just make you want to write 'This is a game for the fans of the predecessor' and be done with it. To take the easy way out. Maybe it would be what the game deserves. You see, the game leaves the strong impression of being minimum effort shovel-ware. It is very tempting to dismiss it as such. Released very shortly after Ambush at Sorinor, it is obvious that it was basically developed in parallel to that game after the relative success of Siege. Though where the former game did try to be a logical, spiritual followup which does have its own individual charme, Walls only has the stale smell of a cash-in more-of-the-same sequel. Given its history, treating it as a good faith effort is hard, but let's at least try.
Do you also sometimes have these incredibly positive memories about a game? Always thinking back how great it was and how you would love to play it again? Doesn't happen at all to me for the simple reason I still have all my games and keep playing them constantly - no misleading emotions.
Warcraft is the first real time strategy game by Blizzard, a company which has become very famous by now.
At the beginning of the game, you have to choose between two factions. These are Orcs and Humans, each of which have their own campaign spanning 12 missions. After selecting your side, the battle begins.
Druid in its third round. War rages again in Belorn - how original. Lone magician (this time not called 'druid', but 'warlock') battles his way through and ends the threat.
After the relatively fresh and original Enlightenment, Warlock is a complete turn towards the original again. No more complicated spell management and also no non-linear levels anymore. In fact, the best description is this: New levels for the original Druid.
Warlords is a very basic game. Some parts of Empire mixed with a little bit of Risk and finished with a fantasy touch. Up to eight different fractions are struggling over supremacy in Illuria. Illuria is a relatively small country with 80 cities which is completely flat and apparantely has some kind of impenetrable borders - this is where the map just ends.
Warlords is very basic in gameplay, but is fun and fast action, and also allows for a certain level of strategy. In Warlords, you have four players (Always 4. If you have less than 4 human players, the rest will be computer controlled), and each player has a warlord, a castle, and a shield. This game uses the paddles instead of the joysticks. What you have to do is use your shield to deflect the ball away from your castle & warlord, while simultaneously trying to direct it -at- your opponents' castles & warlords.
In this game, you are in charge of a nation (faction or whatever), and will try to take over the world. The other players will surrender when you conquer more than half of the castles. You can refuse this surrender, but after that the opponents unite and will try to wipe you out.
Warlords 2… not a huge jump from from the original. NetDanzr already identified the main differences in his review. While I don't agree with him concerning the ships (the manual handling of expensive ships as found in the original was way too fussy, in my opinion), I think he hit the nail on the head concerning the ability to 'buy' production. This feature did not make the game better, because it lowers the strategic importance of individual cities. However, you will use it, because the whole strategic model is of course built around it. Instead of going into further detail on those, this review will focus on what's new in Warlords 2 Deluxe.