Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Fantasy Wars PG Game Review
Random Nonsense
Fans of the miniatures/board game Battle Lore and the older computer game Fantasy General will appreciate Fantasy Wars
In the game, you assume command of one of three armies—Human, Orc, or Elf—and battle your way through a series of interconnected scenarios. The action is strictly turn based. You click on a unit and then tell it where to move and fight. When one unit has finished moving, you go on to the next. When all have completed their actions, the turn ends and the computer plays.
That leaves plenty of time to think about what you’re doing—a welcome break from the frenetic clicking real time games that seem to be in vogue.
Like BattleLore and Fantasy General, movement is done on a hex grid, with one unit occupying each hex. From a distance, the units appear as single figures on the screen, but as you zoom in, you can see the individual soldiers. That makes it appealing to the miniatures gamer in me. Each unit of course has different abilities, and as is standard for these games, you can upgrade units and abilites as you earn money by accomplishing tasks
During the game, units performed realistically (can you even use that term with a fantasy game?). Defensive positions matter; terrain affects both combat and movement. One nice touch is that when a missile unit is placed behind a melee unit, it can provide defensive support. That encourages the realistic positioning of archers.
A tactic that works for me: Move archers into range of the enemy and pound them. Them advance the cheap foot troops to wear it down. Finally, when it’s about to break, send in the cavalry or heroes to mop up.
I found the game play to be very satisfying (and addicting). It’s one of those games where I always wanted to play “just one more turn.”
The graphics are a major upgrade from Fantasy General, and were more than adequate for my tastes. They aren’t what you’d call hyper realistic, but I am more concerned with game play anyway.
Fantasy Wars is played point and click interface. After watching the tutorial, I was able to play without thinking at all about the actual mechanics. If there’s one complaint I have about the game, however, it’s that it was slow to respond to mouse clicks. I often had to click several times before getting a unit to do something.
Overall, this is a good game that I’d recommend.
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