Out of all the card games that have come and gone through my house, oddly enough one game not based on lightning-tossing rodents or metal dragons with razor spatulas managed to make it in and stay around for quite a while. Mage Knight is a tabletop title that utilizes pre-painted figures that you move around anywhere on the table using rulers and inches instead of set spaces and gameboards. The characters are allowed a certain range of movement, attack strength, defense, and life points until they die. There were also rules that were drawn up on team-based movements, terrain modifiers, and line-of-sight rules, and the whole thing was actually very entertaining and quite creative. Well, Bandai Namco games is now setting up to release Mage Knight : Apocalypse on the PC … will it fly with Mage Knight fans? Honestly, I don’t know …

MK : A is set in a fantasy setting just like the collectable miniatures, and centers around five separate heroes (Dwarf, Vampire, Elf, Amazon, and Draconum) as they are guided by a magical race of beings known as the Solonavi. The quest? Each must rescue their world from an evil army surging forwards and threatening to bring about the apocalypse and their evil champion, a five-headed Apocalypse Dragon. In order to do this, they must unite all of the factions in the land to rise up and fight against this army that threatens to destroy everything, and all five individuals will wind up fighting together at the end no matter who you choose to start off with.

Exciting, huh? Well, in order to bring about a game that showcases action and adventure, MK : A is presented in a real time, top-down kind of format similar to other fantasy RPG titles. Each of the five heroes that you can choose and play with is customizable down to hair, color, and name, and each is outfitted with various strengths and weaknesses … such as one being better with magic versus melee fighting ability and so forth. In addition, each area (strength, intelligence, etc.) will level up as each is used, different outfits will change appearance and can be outfitted with gems to boost stats, and you can even find recipes for potions and stuff and collect herbs and items to make them.

Movement is done using left clicks on the mouse or W,A,S,D, commands as is targeting and fighting, and there are hot buttons at the bottom to quickly change out powers or special abilities. You can also recruit heroes to join in with you on your quest and control them as well in simple STOP, ATTACK, or FOLLOW commands. The game is also very quest and scenario driven, so there’s not a whole lot of open area to explore and much of the game is quite linear, but there are plenty of action packed fights to get into, boxes to smash and loot, or items and herbs to collect to make new things.

OK, overall the game handles well … but it is what it is … a Diablo-style hack-and-slash dungeon runner. Each part of the game is divided up into “enter area A, kill all bad guys, do some side quests, make some stuff, get to point B, load next area and start all over again.” Not that this is a bad formula mind you, considering the success many other titles using the same formula have had, the problem is that this one tries to do more than that. Basically, adding in all of the extra features of creating, recruiting, issuing commands, etc. seems better suited to a more open title, and it just seems out of character for what the game is in the end.

Secondly, AI in the game isn’t up to top-notch speed by any stretch of the imagination. Enemies simply charge at you when you are spotted, so combining magic or just taking an all out hack-and-slash perspective and charging into the fray is what works best rather than setting up ambushes or doing more of a “Rainbow Six” style approach and really allowing the unique characters to use their own abilities to your benefit. In addition, the party AI showed flaws as well since many of them would have to be babysat at times, and I found myself fighting a big battle alone, then having to go and lead them out from behind a piece of scenery or something that they couldn’t find their way around.

Overall, the game is simply what it is … a hack-and-slash presented in a third-person perspective. Granted the developers tried to make the Mage Knight universe come to life, but in my opinion it would have been better left as a turn-based strategy game like the tabletop “real life” version of the game to not only keep die hard fans interested, but to really allow for some good strategy and combination options to make the game unique in it’s own right. If you’re a Mage Knight fan, you’ll see a lot of the characters and races that you’re used to, but may be disappointed in the overall end result so buy with caution.

Gameplay: 6.0
The movement and controls are easy to work, and players will be able to figure out everything they need quickly and in the press of a button. Unfortunately the AI in the game makes it frustrating at times, and the simple hack-and-slash style of the game really doesn’t do anything to make the MK universe unique; it just offers up something we’ve all seen and done before with a couple of minor tweaks.    

Graphics: 6.2 
The areas were actually done pretty well, with vegetation and such to accentuate each area and some decent character modeling. Many areas did get repetitive though, and sometimes it was tough to figure out what was a loot-able item and what was just part of the background. Also, I ran the game at the lowest resolution possible and still hit slowdown when there was a lot going on.  

Sound: 5.8
The music seemed a little canned, but not horrible, but the voice acting was pretty well scripted, in my opinion. Most of the dialogue sounded like it was being read directly off paper, and most of the cutscenes got skipped after I figured out what they were trying to add to the story.    

Difficulty: Easy
The game is easy to pick up and get into, and anyone who is a Diablo junkie or whatever should be able to get right into MK and not have any problems. Everything in the game is simple point and click, as is making items, attaching gems, selling, etc. so there shouldn’t be many issues.   

Concept: 5.9 
This was a great opportunity to bring the Mage Knight universe to life on PC, especially in multiplayer, but the game is, instead, a dungeon crawler that we’ve all played a hundred times before. Granted there are things added in that make it a little different, but there are others out there that just seemed more interesting.

Multiplayer: 5.9
There is multiplayer here, so those of you that like to team up and play with buddies can have a good time. Obviously being able to play the game with others makes it more enjoyable, but there probably won’t be a lot of reason to go back after one or two times through.  

Overall: 5.8
Well, Mage Knight is finally here on PC, but it is what it is. Now, I’ll be the first one to say that I’m all for hack-and-slash titles, but there are others out there that held my interest a lot more. Also, as stated, if you were looking for a PC version of the tabletop game you will be disappointed' so if you’re thinking of buying MK : Apocalypse, buy with caution.