Preview: Hands-on9th February 2005Ever since they were captivated by simplicity of the original game, many gamers have been caught up in the magic of the Settlers worlds. The original Settlers game was simple, build your small empire up and expand your territories making the most of your surroundings and raw materials. The Settlers: Heritage of Kings is a complete remake of the Settlers franchise. This new game abandons some of the more complex methods of stock management and concentrates more on grouping buildings, expanding military strength and completing mini adventures with the use of heroes. The eponymous Settlers are small people (well, they look small on screen) with no special abilities or powers, and their world effectively represents our real world as it was in medieval times. Immediately we noticed the introduction of two new characters to the franchise: Serfs and Heroes. The Serfs are the bog-standard unskilled workers; these little fellows build your houses, collect raw materials, chop down forests and backup your military when they have all perished! Heroes on the other hand are the supreme beings in the game, extra military strength and motivation helps you during battles and their special abilities are a much-needed advantage during the missions. The buildings and the manner in which they are used has evolved a great deal, toning down the amount of menus and sub-menus you have to traipse through to get to the right one. Instead they can all be found in one simple menu when selecting the Serfs. Simply select a Serf, choose a building to build and select the location. The Serf will move to the specified location and start construction. Once construction has finished, an appropriate worker for the building will be placed within, for example a priest will enter a Chapel. To stay working the occupants of the buildings need two things nearby, these come in the form of a residence for somewhere to sleep and a farm for somewhere to eat. When the occupants take breaks to feed or sleep the production rate of the building will fall slightly. Much of the stock used within the game has been whittled down into a few main items that can be used and collected across the map. Thalers (a form of currency), Food, Wood, Stone, Iron and Sulphur are the main ingredients for which your people work and the resources around which their world revolves. The manner that these materials are distributed has also changed; instead of the previous method of carrying of every individual piece around your settlement; the goods are now just added and subtracted from a small menu. Many of the resources in the game are easy to get your hands on. You can choose to gather the materials by using your Serfs -or build mines over specific locations to gather resources quicker. A Tax system has also been introduced and increases the availability of currency with which you can purchase extra military equipment and personnel. Thalers are paid to you every 120 seconds on payday, which is a vast improvement on previous versions that used a Gold system which could take an unbelievably long time before you were able to gain (i.e. purchase) any military strength. Taxing is a double-edged sword however; when you put the taxes up you will find your workforce working less and complaining more, when the taxes are lower they tend to be more motivated and happier in their work -but you have less cash to play with. The military system is one of the most impressive parts of The Settlers: Heritage of Kings. The number of units is limited, and the method of purchasing them has changed since the last version. Each military unit that is produced contains one Captain and then further units are purchased under this main controllable unit. The battles themselves seem a lot more organised and more detailed; no longer do the settlers have to take it in turns fighting one on one but multiple enemies can be battled at once. The opponents you fight throughout the game come in two forms, and provide a slightly different approach to most games. Other kingdoms are the main opposition and are easily recognisable, with their own heroes to battle against, military troops and buildings too, but bandits can spring from nowhere and are often found along paths to mission objectives, just to keep you on your toes. The graphics within The Settlers: Heritage of Kings are impressive and notably Germanic in style, including amazing detail within the buildings, character movements and scenery. Every building succinctly details what it does from the outside, for instance you can watch a saw miller take a log, chop it into planks and then store it in a warehouse, or watch the military pop out of their huts and train before your very eyes. Weather changes within the game allow for some interesting constraints and tactical game play; when it snows the water will freeze over allowing an extra path or access to other map areas. These subtle alterations to the environment very cleverly further the advancement of your game in easily managed stages. Blue Byte have done well with some of the small touches in this sequel, and many of the annoying alerts of the previous Settlers titles have been removed with a wide selection of different notification noises. The introduction tutorial is also very cleverly put together and gives just the right amount of information for a player to advance through the game as well as leaving enough of it open to discover things on ones own. Sound effects are varied and surprisingly evocative; every building has a unique set of sounds that are just as descriptive as the graphics, and the background music is upbeat and easily on par with the theme of the game, changing dynamically with different in-game situations. The overall feeling of this new rendition of a well-loved -but underrated- classic creates a similar feeling to the Age of Empires games, yet Settlers feels less static and more organic in game play and graphical content. The game play in this latest iteration is noticeably faster and easier to move through, rather than dragging gamers through the seemingly endless hours that previous battles used to last for -which should make the game more appealing to online players and open up a lot more competition. The adventures, missions and battles in this game have opened The Settlers: Heritage of Kings' eyes to the real world of gaming. Interesting things to watch out for in the final version include a variety in Settler races (including building design variation), a wide variety in the single-player missions and online gaming. This title clearly sets the Settlers franchise back on course, but with further areas of the game yet to be explored we'll have to wait and see for the final verdict. |
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