I've pretty much given up on
RTS games. Like everyone else, I played the
first couple of C&C games, but I hated Warcraft
and all its spawn. I thought the original Total
Annihilation was quite good, and TA: Kingdoms
really got my attention. The only other RTS
series besides the Command & Conquer Series
and the Total Annihilation series that ever
caught my attention was the Myth series, and
I'm not sure if those games should be lumped
in with the RTS genre, or with any genre. Suffice
it to say that the Myth series *is* the best
series of games around, with the possible exception
of the Heretic series.
Anyway. So I liked TA: Kingdoms.
It was slightly buggy and lagged off the first
release (no doubt in a forced early release,
an attempt to beat Westwood's Tiberian Sun to
the shelves). However, a patch was quick issued
which fixed all this up. The game's multiplayer
was quite good, but single player was where
it really shone - 50 missions taking place across
the land of Darien. The same holds true of The
Iron Plague, which introduces a fifth side to
the mix, as well as 25 new missions, for a grand
total of 75 missions - find another RTS with
that much single play game time! Each mission
also has a cut-scene prior to it, which helps
set the mood well. The missions, as in the original
Kingdoms, follow an alternating sides pattern
- you may play as the guerilla Zhon side in
one mission, only to switch next mission to
the technologically oriented new side, Creon,
and obliterate the buildings of the mission
prior. This is a really cool way of handling
the game, the plot comes out well this way,
as if there is quite a backround to the game
(however, not as much as in some games *cough*
*cough* Myth). Still though, this is an excellent
job of backround, speaking in relation to what
else is out there. The missions themselves are
quite varied, from leading small parties of
men through underground caves (which were a
really lame environment, though), to obliterating
thousands of soldiers in massive outdoor battles,
base-building and defending, raiding, and more.
You'll never get bored although sometimes some
missions can seem near-impossible - there's
always a cheap way to overcome them, I found.
Mainly this consisted of the very tough 'hold
off the enemy for so long' missions near the
end of the game. What the technical goal here
was was 'survive for so long,' so in cases where
I didn't require any particular unit I just
flew around with flying units with the game
speed cranked until the time ran out. In other
missions where I had a Sage or important unit
to protect, I loaded him into an air transport
and flew around in that, until the time ran
out. Cheap yes, and arguably bad gameplay for
me to have to do it, but it did get me to the
next mission. The one let down was ironically
one of something being too easy - the last mission,
for me, was a battle of epic proportions - but
was cut short when the other team's commander
was killed by some of my artillery, without
even particularly targeting him. It turned out
the goal of the mission was not to kill every
last trace of the enemy (and I killed 1648 of
the foe), but only to assassinate their commander.
I'm glad that I was under the wrong impression
for most of the 3.5 hour game, because the work
it took to gain a foothold near the enemy's
last fortress made it feel like I deserved to
win, instead of just sending in four dragons
and targeting my artillery on their main man,
to the hollow victory that would become.
All of the new units and maps
released by Cavedog onto the internet are here,
meaning in addition to the completely new society
of Creon, the four other powers have been bolstered
a bit, as well as the new single player missions,
and a hell of a lot of new multiplayer maps
- which focus less on scripting (cool idea,
but only in theory), and more on massive battlefields.
There is also the new tileset for Creon, a strange
mix of technology, northern land, and turquoise
grass-plants, and a few more seen only in the
single player - cave, laboratory, ect. However,
there are barely any multiplayer maps in the
Creon tileset, and none in any of the other
new tilesets. So is the new stuff all good?
For the most part, yes. Some things were overused
and some were underused (the forementioned tilesets),
and the new side has the incredibly frustrating
lack of heavy artillery - apparently these guys
*invented* gunpowder, so why would they lack
the sophisticated siege engines their *less
sophisiticated* counterparts are equipped with?
- but all in all, this is basically a must if
you enjoyed the original Total Annihilation:
Kingdoms.
