I've always wanted to play The Settlers, ever since its first release. But for some reason or another, I've just never gotten around to playing one. Finally, with its fifth release Heritage of Kings, I get my hands on a copy, only to discover that this latest release is somewhat different from the previous versions. Gone are the big-headed, cutesy people, and added is more of a combat focus, although combat is still not the main brunt of this series.

The plot of the Single-Player mode in the game is basically that Dario, our leading hero wannabe, will spend his time defending his city and his friends' cities, and in between build up his base of operations, linking various villages and towns in the process. The missions are mostly linear in nature, with sometimes a choice given between different missions, but most often not. After winning a particular mission, play will usually move on to the next mission in line. Each mission consists of goals that will need to be accomplished for the mission to be successful. These missions fall under the umbrella of helping the neighbors, defending your own turf and getting the enemy before he gets you.

The combat is apparently (I say apparently, because I haven't personally experienced the earlier Settlers' games) beefed up, but it's still a small part of the game. The units are basic, even with upgrades, and there's not much control given over the individual units in battle. When sending troops into combat, it's simply a matter of selecting whatever units you want to fight, choosing a location, and then sitting back and watching the battle and hoping for the best. If there are any trees around, you won't even get to watch, as the trees will hide all the action.

The biggest attraction of The Settlers was the city-building aspect. There is still an emphasis on building, but there's hardly any strategy involved in choosing which buildings to construct first, or where to place them. In the city-building Impressions games, the supply lines and placement of each resource was vital to the mission's success. Well, in Settlers, it's the same strategy for every mission, in that first players will have to find the resources of clay, stone, wood, etc., build refineries to speed up the gathering process, and then build farms and houses to support the workers. Then it's time to build a college to conduct research for upgrades, and finally players will get to build a barracks for unit production. It's the same every time. As each building requires a LOT of resources to build, there should have been some strategic planning in choosing which building to construct first out of a finite amount of resources available, but as all of the basic buildings have to be built in the beginning, there's really no choice or thinking involved. There is an enormous amount of time spent waiting, however. Waiting for Godot, as it were. The resources are very slowly acquired, and much of the game time will be sitting at the computer, waiting for enough stones or iron to build the next necessary building.

While waiting, though, players will have a lot of pretty things to look at. The looks of the game have gone from cartoony drawings, to beautiful renditions. The trees, rocks, and waterfalls all look gorgeous, with a tremendous amount of detail. The same goes for the animals; watching Dario's hawk wheel around in the sky overhead is a sensory delight. The buildings are attractive, with a medieval Teutonic appearance (or at least what we all imagine they looked like back then), and are animated, as well. But even though everything is so beautiful, there's just not the sense of involvement in watching the buildings and inhabitants of Caesar III, even though the graphics of that game are wholly outdated now. It's a cold sort of beauty, here.

The music of the game is really nice, and fits the theme of the game exactly, with a slow medieval type of sound. The ambient background sounds are exceptional, as well. Players will definitely get a sense of being out in the woods while playing this game.

There is a multiplayer option, but most of the modes offered in this option are just as slow as the single-player game, and have the same weak combat.

This RTS game, while good-looking, just doesn't stand out from the crowded strategy field in any way. The resource management is fun at first, but after players realize that most of the time will be spent waiting for resources to pile up for the next building choice, they probably won't spend a lot of their free time playing. The combat is minimal, and doesn't really add anything to the gameplay. This isn't a bad game, but it's not a very good game, either. The bottom line is that it's just kinda bland.
 

Gameplay: 6
After playing for a while, there's not much incentive to keep coming back. Addictive and compelling are not words that would be used to describe the gameplay.

Graphics: 9
Wonderful graphics! Really beautiful.

Sound: 7
The music and sounds are all done very well, but the voiceovers are less so. However, they're decently done and aren't annoying.

Difficulty: Medium
The difficulty is of a medium range.

Concept: 6
There's nothing really creative or new offered in this game.

Multiplayer: 6
There is a multiplayer mode, but it doesn't offer anything much different than the single player mode.

Overall: 6.5
A wholly average game.