A perfect example of a successful company sitting back and raking the money in, instead of trying to stay at the cutting edge of RTS games...

It was certainly with great excitement that I ripped open the kingdoms box, desperate to get started on this game that I've been waiting for, for what seems like years now. So it was with a little disappointment that there was only one cd in the box. "That's ok" I thought, a game doesn't have to be big to be good, and just because the original TA had two cds, doesn't mean this one will be any worse. I should point out at this time that I absolutely loved TA, as far as I was concerned, it was leaps and bounds ahead of all the other RTS games I'd played, and even now I've played no RTS game where the interface is as powerful as that afforded to TA (and now Kingdoms).

Anyway, I installed it at work, obviously desperate to get going. The initial story line was mildly interesting, certainly not stimulating, and perhaps a little bit strange, but not letting that deter me, I pressed onto the first "Mission", or "Chapter" as in Kingdoms. Well, can you say disappointment? You get a spattering of archers, a couple of knights, and a "messenger" which you have to get from one side of the map to the other. I fail to see how a three year old could stuff this one up.

I won't go into the sordid details of the story, after all you can read all about that in someone else's review. I'm just going to tell you what I thought of the game. If you want details on how it plays, what you're supposed to do, you'd be better off reading one of those "objective" reviews found somewhere else.

So let's get stuck into it.

Speed

The first thing I noticed was how jerky the scrolling was. With less than 15 units under my control, and less than 15 units under "computer control", you'd surely assume that it should be silky smooth, particularly on a pII-400 with 64Mb RAM. Not so, it was very jerky, and little did I realise that this was just a sign of things to come! At home now, on my pII-333 with 128Mb RAM, and I'm up to "Chapter 25" now. There are quite a few more units involved, and it's very distressing trying to click on a moving enemy unit, or even a moving friendly unit; by the time the computer realises you've clicked, the unit is not anywhere near the mouse! Each unit practically pauses mid-step as the computer makes some (obviously complicated) calculation. Further investigation points to a "large number of textures" that is "used to make up each unit".

Beauty

So, for all it's bad points, there is a good one.. it's beautiful. The oars on the ships look lovely, the sails turn slightly (although they don't seem to have any relation to which way the wind is blowing - which is indicated by a flying pennant which is on top of just about anything it will fit on.) The "cut scenes" are nothing more than what looks like a slow pan across an old painting, which is in theme with the whole feel of the game, if a little disappointing for someone who's used to watching more.. spectacular cut scenes seen in other games.

Sound

So if you wondered how they managed to drop it down to one cd, the sounds in the game might give you a clue, which are absolutely terrible. There's an occasional "reasonable one", like.. "my bow is yours" uttered by an archer, but 95% of the time, an excessively (and ever increasingly) obnoxious *bong* is emitted from the sound card. Some units don't even have an "acknowledgement" sound at all apart from that bong thing, although they all do seem to have their own firing noise (for the "ranged-weapon" units anyhow).

Strategy/Tactics

Maybe it was just me, but it seemed all you had to do in most Chapters was amass enough units, and go and kill everything. There are the occasional "rescue this" or "take her here", and even a "do nothing but watch" Chapter, but there's certainly nothing revolutionary there. Sure, some units have their weaknesses and strengths, but all that that means is just having a few archers with your knights so that the dragons which can't be slain by swords while breathing fire, can at least be knocked down with arrows.

One brilliant concept that is starting to find its way into more RTS games these days is that of veteran, or experienced units. Kingdoms does this, but after having played Warzone 2100 which has quite a detailed "experience" system, Kingdoms just doesn't cut it. What's the point of nurturing Boemond the mighty Knight up to 200 kills if you don't get to use him in the next Chapter? Ok, so he gets a pretty gold helmet, gold sword, and gold under-pants, but so what if he can kill a little bit quicker, and is a bit harder to kill? It's a lot less effort just to pop out (or conjure) three more green knights who would kill a beastie just as quick. So I didn't find myself lamenting the loss of a 250 kills-war ship, not like i lamented the loss of a similarly experienced unit in Warzone 2100 (thank god for save games!)

On the good side the line of sight/fog of war seems to be a lot better, affected by height most noticeably, but also little bumps in the terrain (you can't see behind them). One of the funny things about one particular unit is the muskateer. Their firing range is further than they can see, so you can "spot" an enemy unit using a spotter, and then get the muskateers to shoot it. Fancy shooting something you can't see with a musket!

Satisfaction

I read somewhere once, that the reason we play these games is for a feeling of satisfaction.. of feeling good about yourself when you win something. Kingdoms has managed to minimise this feeling by having you switch and change among all four different sides throughout the whole story. So when you start feeling satisfied that yes, your side is superior, and they are better, and through your leadership they will triumph. All of a sudden, in the very next Chapter, your fighting as that despicable enemy, slaying your once-comrades! It's very disconcerting.

Conclusion

So while you play this really slow game, assaulted all the while with an obnoxious cacophony of bongs, pops and whistles, you are stroked by very pretty pictures. But I think that there are quite a number of us who would gladly trade pretty pictures for game-play. I'm afraid that Kingdoms is just basically Warcraft with pretty graphics and a few extra units. It doesn't add anything to the RTS genre, and is just very disappointing. It seems that Cavedog have joined the ranks of Bullfrog and the others.. start-up companies have great ideas, from obviously brilliant people.. and when the game gets successful, some moronic marketing manager (who probably hasn't even played Tetris let alone a game their company has produced) figures that all you need to do is change tanks to knights, planes to dragons, and voila! You have a brand new "revolutionary game". Wake up guys, this isn't going to cut it. So don't buy this game, dig up your old Warcraft 1 box, install that, and kill some beasties there, or just stick with Total Annihilation, the game that was a kind of revolution in itself. It'll run on your pII-333, and at a nice smooth speed too.