Warrior Kings Review

But alas, we get back to the weak AI. At times, the enemy AI utterly destroys the entire experience. It often happens that they will not retaliate when you attack them with catapults, cannons, or other long-range weaponry. Likewise, poor pathfinding can cause your own units to get lost when they are most needed.

I must confess that, because of such matters, it took me quite a while to pinpoint the reason why I've been encouraged to continue playing the game, in spite of all of its bugs and graphic weaknesses. What makes it so catchy? The answer of course lies in the epic feeling you get when you engage in massive battle scenes. What's more, the game blends two very good gaming ingredients - the epic Shogun-spiced RTS genre mixed with a strange fantasy/medieval storyline. Plus, the developers have obviously made a huge effort to make the game seem as realistic as possible. A great detail is when your village is assailed by barbarian hordes; you mustn't allow them to get near your buildings because they will start torching them (an ideal defense is to set up a sentry tower and pack it with archers). Finally, once you get into the whole scheme of military and economic evolvement the game becomes even more enjoyable.

Unfortunately, the visuals are definitely not the best I've seen. In fact, the in-game textures look like they are software rendered, which is especially apparent when you zoom the camera to the full extent. Above all, the ground textures will make you think you're playing on a PC 386 in the old VGA res. mode. On the plus side, the animation of the troop-models is very good and life-like. Also, many details can be spotted in the environment (such as cute birdies flying above forest and hills, different types of fishes swimming in the sea, clouds casting their shadows over land, and so on). Maps are huge and can be a great challenge to explore.

Sound effects are pleasing: the clashes of medieval weaponry enriched with various background nature sounds like birds singing, the falling of cut-down trees, and so on. Also, your units have a solid amount of replies to the orders that are given out to them. The few music tracks they are very high quality and they perfectly match the combat on screen.

The multiplayer is fun enough I guess, but the main fun comes with the huge single-player campaign. In a nutshell, it will chain you to your PC until you complete the whole thing. Some missions might appear tricky at first, but that is where you realize that using the right military tactic is the vital component with which you can overthrow your foes. And this would be cool if it were not for the pathetic AI snags - this really ruins the game's potential and I sincerely hope that the developers will set this right with the upcoming patch. In light of all the things I've said, it is likely that most of you (who are passionate RTS players) will not stand the aforementioned glitches (especially if you've paid $35 for the game). Of course, we've contacted Microids and they replied that a patch will be available on March 20 2002. According to them, this patch is going to set things right. Fair enough.

In the end, I have to say that the bugs really pissed me off and I was ready to tarnish the whole game. But, in all honesty half-way through the single-player campaign, I was hooked. On the other hand, I wouldn't recommend you bother with game until the patch is released - there are simply some things that still need major "polishing." If the patch fixes this, I'd give additional 10% to the game.