| Game Reviews From a Parental Perspective! | |
|
|
|
| Home | Forums | Review Archive | Columns | Feature Articles |
|
Home >
Review Archive >
Video Games
> Results: Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes
Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Scroll down for our Kid Factor. 
Real-time strategy is one genre that's been confined mostly to the PC due to control constraints on console systems. The Kingdom Under Fire games for Xbox have finally offered a control scheme that works for this genre on the console, while also offering some exciting action to go along with it. Taking control of a general and multiple troops under their command, you fight your way across all sorts of battlefields in all sorts of conditions and terrain. All of it is meaningful to your eventual success or failure, and with Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes, failure will be most common.
This is a very hard game. The learning curve is steep and even once you've climbed it and understand the concepts you need to succeed, your execution may take several tries within a mission. It gets frustrating because there's no way to save the game in the middle of a mission or even at a waypoint along the way. This also means you need to set aside a large chunk of time to play each one. Don't expect to sit down for fifteen minutes of entertainment with this game. It's virtually impossible to do that. Thankfully, the time invested is time well-spent since the game can be a blast to play. Mission design has you doing all sorts of things that revolve around combat on mostly wide open battlefields. Setting up archers and long range siege weapons to help cover the attacks of your infantry and cavalry makes for a great time. Strategy fans will love finding the optimal positioning for a good assault while action fans will enjoy the hand to hand combat that ensues when swords are engaged. Control is easy enough once you get a handle on it. Using the right trigger to bring the map to the fore, you then hit a button to either designate only the unit you control to move to that spot or another button that will make all units move in loose formation to that location. In the heat of battle, it's easy to give quick orders to archers to disengage from a melee and take high ground for a volley. In the meantime, you can be smacking around anyone that comes near. Using button combinations, you can unleash varied attacks on the attacking or defending forces. It's a key part of battle to be in command and fighting in the midst of a large conflagration. As Skill Points build up during the fight, you can call on other officers to use special abilities or do special attacks of your own to cut down your opponents faster. The game has you always thinking, even while engaged in the near mindless slashing it takes to whittle away at those who want to destroy you.  The story is mostly irrelevant to enjoyment of the game. It doesn't get out of your way too often so you always know what's going on, but the voice acting and the plotting is mediocre. The game makes up for that with some beautiful graphics. This is easily one of the most compelling console games currently available when you see it in motion. Koei's Kessen III is probably the only other game that shows a huge battlefield with hundreds of men as well as this one does. That game provides a great comparison with Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes because the two are very much alike in design and gameplay. Kingdom Under Fire is just a little better than Kessen III when it comes to control of your troops. It's much easier to direct everyone and you're not breaking up play too much when you do it, either. This game also aspires to be like Koei's Dynasty Warriors series both in the hand to hand combat and in the heavy metal soundtrack that plays during battles. It doesn't capture the same level of quality as that series in either place, but the overall whole is just as good because those things are only two pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that is Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes. The biggest problem with the game is the difficulty. It's all over the map and without a good tutorial, players are likely to be turned away even before they get started. It's almost guaranteed that the first time you turn the game on and start playing you will wonder why anyone would recommend this game. It's only after you figure out which campaign is the easiest and decide to sit back and take your lumps that you'll understand the brilliance of the control scheme and see the great game underneath that initial hill-climb of difficulty. Online play is a lot more robust than the first entry in this series, but it's not terribly easy to find people to play with online either. There's also a large learning curve involved there when you do finally find a game, so once again expect to be beaten up badly before you start having any real entertainment. This is a great game in spite of its own issues with alienating the players that want to like it. Clamber over all its humps and you're likely to be playing it for a long time.  
There are some adult themes and language found in this game. The biggest reason it needs to be in the Adult category though, is the difficulty and the complexity of gameplay. Most young teens probably won't be captivated enough to play it long enough to figure everything out. Those that want to might be able to play it though. There are certainly some characters that are more mature-rated than others, but the overall on-screen action is closer to the battles in the Lord of the Rings films than it is Conan. It does get bloody on the battlefield and bodies remain where they fall. Everyone's always talking about killing each other too. Most of the people in the game aren't all that nice.
It's probably best to stick to the ESRB with Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes. Definitely save this one for when your kids are older though. If they have an interest in strategy, this is the kind of game that can keep them occupied for days. There are plenty of missions to carry out and the online game is always there once you're done, provided anyone's still around to play it with. Comments? Chat about it in our forums! Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Browse Amazon.com's selection of "Kingdom Under Fire" themed games Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes |
Read the GamerDad 2007 Holiday Guide!
|
Please Note: GamerDad is not intended to be read by anyone under 18. We stay clean, but be warned! Content Management System developed by Redbird Solutions. |
