Hot off the presses the latest release Stronghold Legends promises to continue its predecessor’s legacy. The game begins with quite an artistic and eye-catching loading image followed by a short but to the point introduction movie depicting the story of The Sword and Stone and King Arthur. The plot of the game narrates the original story of Arthur with a little twist. The game takes after its ancestors the Stronghold’s previous titles in the gameplay manner. The main menu has an impressive background of a snarling and roaring dragon, which heightens the anticipation. A nifty tutorial teaches all basics, which ensures a smooth starting. The game starts with a keep around which a stockpile and granary is built for storing and stockpiling resources such as food wood and stone. The main objective is to create a castle containing all the equipment required to build a massive army on order to conquer new lands and defend the existing ones. One gets to choose from three almost identical kingdoms the icy kingdom of Sigfried in Germany, King Arthur’s kingdom with his fabled knights and the evil Vlad the Impaler a.k.a. Dracula. Only different for the handful of creatures they spawn it’s almost the same experience playing with any of them. One encounters many famous historical personalities such as Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table, Count Dracula and Siegfried along the story. The game has several heroes such as Merlin, the Knights of the Round Table and Dracula. While Merlin can summon a powerful lightening ball that electrocutes all fiends in the region, King Arthur can summon a group of magical knights. Taxes imposed upon the peasants, which feed the castle treasury. Higher taxes will result in decrease in honor and popularity of the castle so the player is required to create harmony between the two utilities, rise in taxes should be countered by extra rations of food and vice versa. Honor gives the player an option to create special units, while popularity determines the current peasant population and those want to come to the kingdom. The militia units are quite well balanced, each having unique advantages and disadvantages. The game just as promised has delivered legendary creatures like the cackling witches on their broomsticks, the powerful dragons with their fiery breath, etc. The graphics have been tweaked up in comparison to the last engine, which used to have trouble rendering multiple units let alone an army; this engine however easily displays battalions of soldiers numbering in hundreds all together and with individual details. The ambience of the game is quite enjoyable, short and musical soundtracks with a medieval age ring to it blend in excellently with the game. The people are responsive and active providing salutations, complaints and even opinions about the governing of the kingdom. The narrator constantly warns the player of oncoming attacks and problems faced by the peasants in the castle. All in all Stronghold Legends is a decent game which some good, to the point, entertaining missions, good voice-overs and some of the best medieval atmospheres in a computer game.
Archive for August 21st, 2007
Capcom has been responsible for hit titles on the Playstation 2 console. One of which is Resident Evil 4 Bio Hazard, which was a remarkable success so it was decided that the game should try its luck on the PC also. The story begins when a well known pharmaceutical company Umbrella, responsible for creating biological weapons has yet another plague problem this time by a character by the alias of Lord Saddler who used to work at the Umbrella. He releases the plague in a far off village in Europe. The plagues effects include full control over the victims without putting them in danger. In the plot of this episode the daughter of the United State’s President is kidnapped. Agent Leon goes of on a rescue mission to hunt for Ashley the President’s daughter. He goes off against the local villagers, armed soldiers, priests and bosses that include Right Hand, Salazaar and other monsters. As the game has been transferred from the console it has inherited the traditional controller problem. Thanks to our crackers and modders there are patches available on the internet that allow the user to aim using the mouse control. The overall graphics quality is of the traditional PS2 hence forth not so bad. It gives reasonable performance using the minimum required hardware. The game is played in 3rd person view during which the player assumes the identity of Leon. He goes along shooting the non-zombie NPCs or doing it down and dirty melee. The main problem the player faces during the game is ammo. There is a constant shortage of ammo leading the player to keep a check on the ammunition situation. During the game Leon gets to use the standard pistol, shotgun, rocket launcher and various grenades. The basic weapons are then traded in or custom upgraded for better performance. In some of the levels the player is required to play as Ashley helping Leon in petty circumstances such as opening doors by getting a boost of Leon or other errands. The puzzles in the game are quite unique and do tend to give the player food for thought though getting stuck at one may prove to be troublesome. Leon keeps getting helped and advised by Hannah the “lady in the transmitter”, he later meets the famous “lady in red” and is helped by a cocky scientist. The story takes interesting twists and turns which keep the player interested. Tension of what may be lurking around the next corner keeps the player on the edge of the seat. The music is not very prominent which heightens the thrilling and chilling effect of the game. All in all if one is willing to sacrifice lots of time in order to learn the proper button configuration of the game it can be quite an appealing game to be played.
Preview: Edge of Twlight
An Australian Developer, Fuzzyeyes Studios came without a highly unusual game title, Hot Dog King: A Fast Food Empire. Oddly enough it did get the company recognition. It seems like that was a previous pupae form of the company as it has decided to sprout their wings and show their true colors with the announcement of Edge of Twilight for the Xbox 360 and the PC. A complete contrast Edge of Twilight is a 3rd person action game, which takes place in a post apocalyptic, mechanized fantasy world where society is split into separate dimensions of night and day, adding a unique quality to the environment. The player shall play as Lex a bounty hunter in a land full of biomechanical freaks. While the developers didn’t release any details, they said that Lex had unique and numerous abilities, each of them depending on the realm he is in present. The game shall have an intricate branched storyline. While the game’s release date hasn’t yet been given out it goes without saying that PC gamers and Xbox 360 gamers alike shall await it most anxiously.








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