Warlords: Battlecry II

The treant (sort of a giant which resembles a huge tree come to life) lumbers across the forest; druids, griffons and dragons follow. This is all that remains of a once-mighty army after a fierce battle with harpies, dragonliches, zombies and giant bats – all minions of the undead army.

Warlords Battlecry II, from Strategic Studies Group and Ubi Soft, is the type of real-time strategy game that will not only frustrate players, but will deliver solid entertainment. There should be a warning on this game about it becoming habit-forming, because it certainly is that.

The game features many different ways to play, a myriad of races to play as, and graphics that are enticing. The animation is excellent, the environments lush and the special effects are delightful. The avatars may be a little on the dumb side, and the overall AI favors the computer (more about this in a moment).

Now, about the game intelligence ...

Sure, when playing a RTS it is presumed that you will control your army. The problem with this game is that, at times, what you tell your army to do is countermanded by the attack mentality. There are several options under the attitude key, and you have to be very precise in how you manipulate the attitudes of your army.

Let’s take as an example, the hero of your army. Heroes are the key to each scenario; each faction has one, and your hero is the one that begins the resource and technology development by being able to convert resource areas for your use, and building the primary buildings that begin your faction’s growth at the start of each scenario. Yes, you can plunk the hero at the home base and just send out armies, but as your hero progresses through the scenarios, he or she will develop abilities that are welcomed in a fight.

The scenario you are in has your army poised on the precipice of invading another enemy land. You have already conquered one en route to your current position, but instead of destroying all the enemy towers (which will shoot at you unless you destroy them), you have moved your army onward. Your hero has been wounded severely, and you pull him back to recover. But wait, there is an enemy tower over there. Your hero wanders over and begins to fight the tower, even though death is lurking not far away. Quickly you click on your hero and order him away from the tower. Obligingly the hero begins to march to the spot you indicated. Ok, you think, lets line up the army for the attack. You shift to the army, only to hear the heartbeat of your hero get louder and faster. You jump back to find that your hero has disobeyed your orders and gone back at the tower.

Therein lies the frustration of the game. Enemy heroes, when getting walloped in a battle, turn and run, and can lead your army on a merry chase.

You also have to really work to keep units from randomly attacking anything within range. Strategy does have a real place in this program. You don’t want to charge towers if you can have archers stand outside the tower’s range and shoot it to rubble.

The game has a variety of ways to play: you can begin a campaign, wherein you battle for possession of all 67 regions of Etheria (each battle has its own victory conditions and strengths of the enemy differs from region to region); you can enter a single player skirmish against up to five computer-controlled enemies; you can fire up the modem and play against others through IPX, TCP/IP or the Internet; and there is a tutorial. The program also comes with a scenario editor, which opens up every angle of the game for editing.

Rather than actually have workers collect resources (there are four in the game: gold, metal, stone and crystal), you simply have the outcrop converted by your hero or another character which has that ability. As the money pours in, you can develop new technologies, which lead to better army units and buildings. The trick of the game comes in managing your army, fending off attacks and conquering the armies of other heroes, which continuing to collect the resources and build your clan.

This is a pattern that follows a lot of RTS games, though Battlecry tries to keep the resource part of the game simple.

There are 12 races in this game: humans, dwarves, undead, barbarians, minotaurs, orcs, high elves, wood elves, dark elves, fey, dark dwarves and daemons. No one race has a clear advantage and the higher army units seem fairly evenly matched.

The control elements can be a challenge in terms of repetitive commands, but overall are easy to learn and to navigate through.

Graphically this game is a joy to look at. The special effects are well done. If an army tracks through snow, you can see the footprints left in their passing. Water effects are not as good, but the game does have exceptional details in most aspects. Night and weather is also very well rendered.

The musical score is excellent. The chatter of the onscreen characters can be a little monotonous, and downright laughable at times. The barbarian actually does an Arnold Schwarzenegger impression, and, yes, says “I’ll be back!” That may have been intended as a joke, but really is lame.

Warlords Battlecry II is a very enjoyable game. Game play is addictive, and each scenario has its own challenges. This is not a plot-driven game, but still is rife with action.

This program is rated Teen.

Install: Medium
The game will take 853 megs of hard-drive space, and the install is slow and unexciting.

Gameplay: 8
Commands to go and stay some place should not be an invitation for disobeying orders. In that regard, this game can be a challenge to control. Overall, each scenario flows smoothly from start to finish. And just because your hero may did, doesn’t mean the scenario ends until all of your clan elements have been destroyed. As long as you have one building/tree that creates armies, you are in business.

Graphics: 8.8
Some elements have taken a back seat to others, but overall this game is quite entertaining visually.

Sound: 8
The musical score is terrific. The character chatter can be repetitive, and the action sounds are what one expects from this type of game.

Difficulty: 8
This game presents a number of challenges in both control of armies, and in each scenario. Overall, the control elements are easy to learn and use. There are also four difficulty levels so players can tailor the action and challenge to their own ability levels.

Concept: 7
This game does not revolve around a plot-driven theme, but does a very nice job of giving game players strategic challenges.

Multiplayer: 7.5
This game is very well supported in the multiplayer department, but because the game lacks a plot, the multiplayer action is little more than skirmishes, with a variety of victory conditions.

Overall: 8.2
This game is very enjoyable, and it has a great look. It is tough to manage at times, but with constant vigilance of what your army is doing, you can actually incorporate some strategic elements, which go a long way toward success. Newcomers to the genre should find this quite entertaining, and RTS veterans will enjoy the action.