Total Annihilation - Kingdoms - 09/10/99
by: John Rowe

Good old Fantasy Games:

I have a great fondness for fantasy games such as this; I liked Warcraft2, Baldur’s Gate, Darkstone, Diablo, Heroes of Might and Magic 3 and Thief. The only problem with these games is that there are a lot of clichés, to many for most peoples liking. The bits that get most are the phoney names such as Aaracharill and Krrakkakkak etc, they either over dose on the vowels or in other places they over dose on the consonants, any which way it’s still what keeps the nerdy factor attached to these games. 

Then there is the seriousness usually portrayed in these games, everybody’s so damn serious, with the occasional “your mother looks like an Orc” type pun thrown in to try and lighten things up, which fails miserably. Another big one is the usual premise for these games, it’s always you must get seven holy stones or a magic sword or some bloody book. To be safe some go for the good old good vs. evil plot, which is always popular but a little tedious, so far Baldur’s Gate has had the best plot in my mind at least. 

Finally they always manage to spoil the games in one area or another, Darkstone has a dodgy interface, Diablo is repeative beyond belief, Baldur’s gate has possibly the worst A.I. ever, Thief was spoiled by those stupid Zombie’s, Warcraft 2 was ruined by it’s ease of rushing and Heroes has lots of little annoyances. Well we’ve got Kingdoms now (actually we’ve had it for a while now) and here’s my say on it.

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