FANTASY GENERAL --------------- Written By SSI Published By Mindscape Reviewed By Richard Batey On A Pentium 166 1 Introduction This game was written by the same people who wrote Panzer General And Allied General. In fact, it uses the same games 'engine' as them but is set in an entirely different world, a world of fantasy. One thing is constant though, and that is war. What is war good for? Computer games actually. One thing I must confess before going on is that at this time of writing this review I have not completed this game. I do feel that I have played through enough of it to give you my opinion of it, so I am. 2 Background Welcome to the world of Aer. For a change the history of the world is confined to just three pages in the rule book where usually it waffles on and on and on. To sum up the story, Aer was a peaceful world where advances were made in the physical and arcane sciences. But, now, you see, the Shadowlord came and put a stop to all that, he conquered the world (boo hiss, boo hiss). Now the time has come for the Heroes to step forth (Hurray, Yippee). Let battle commence. 3 Technical You need at least a 386DX computer with 8MB of Ram. If not then I suggest you forget it. The game is not recommended for Windows 95 as they warn the game may lock up during play. I, ever heedful of advice, am playing through Windows 95 and have not experienced any problems yet though I save quite regularly just in case. Play can be against the computer (4 degrees of difficulty) or another player. A neat idea is the play by mail mode, you save your turn then send it either through the post or electronic mail to your opponent who them makes their move and sends it back to you. NEAT. You can play just the one scenario or the full blown campaign game. In the latter you work your way towards the Shadowlord for the final countdown and may the best Rocky win is what I say. 4 Gameplay This is going to be a whirlwind tour through the game as it gets quite involved and there is a lot going on. First of all you need to choose a character, they can be renamed if you so desire. There are four on offer and they are: Knight Marshall Calls - Specialist in cavalry Lord Marcus - Specialist in infantry Archmage Krell - Spellcaster Sorceress Mordra - Specialist in beast units They all have other abilities but the main one is as listed above. Having chosen your character you then select the difficulty level (easy, medium, hard or custom) and whether to play a scenario or campaign game. You can also choose the initial starting forces of your army or let the computer choose them for you at random. Then it is Hi Ho it's off to war we go! Now you might be asking what kind of forces you have to play with, or you may not. If you are then you are in luck because I am about to tell you. The list goes something like this: Heavy Infantry 36 Giants, Werebeasts, Samurai etc Light Infantry 18 Javelinmen, Goblins, Skeletons etc Skirmishers 12 Scouts, Huntsmen, Shadows etc Archers 13 Elfbowmen, Pistolers, Steam Gunners etc Cavalry 29 Unicorns, Chariots, Hydra etc Light Cavalry 12 Elf Knights, Boar Riders, Juns etc Sky Hunters 28 Pegasi, Dragons, Harpies etc Bombardiers 16 Roc Knights, Cloud Ships, Zeppelin etc Siege Engines 13 Catapults, Disease Throwers, Cannon etc Spellcasters 6 Healers, Druids, Earthmasters etc The numbers above relate to the different types of units available throughout the game. If you total them up you will find there are 183, a lot I'm sure you'll agree. Each unit has different strengths and weaknesses and vary greatly in cost, the better they are the more gold you need to pay for them. A lot of the stronger units do not become available until you have spent gold on research. What area you want to start researching is entirely up to you, you need to set how much to spend as a percentage of money received. You may wish to spend 5% of all income on researching Archers and only 1% on Cavalry. Fine, but later on you will come across a scenario that really needs good Cavalry units to do well in so a balanced research plan is probably best. If you specialise, say, in Sky Hunters, then your computer opponent will compensate by buying units to negate your advantage i.e. more Archers in order to shoot them down. Each unit class has its strengths and weaknesses, Heavy Infantry is the brute force of your army but will be decimated if attacked on open ground by Cavalry. Archers provide fire support over a couple of hexes but are useless at hand-to-hand combat. And so it goes. One important point to think about is the fact that your units gain experience through battles and hence become tougher and tougher as the game progresses. You can become quite attached to units that have been through thick and thin with you and their loss can hurt like mad. You can personalise them by giving them names to make the attachment even tighter. Me, Legolas the Elfbowman and Sue the Wyvern (remind you of somebody? Not me not me. THEY all thought it, Sue, not me. Have a different Sue in mind honest. Mercy!) have been through a lot together I can tell you. Mind you, Legolas does have a magic bow so that helps him a lot. Didn't I tell you that you can find/win magic items for your units to use? Are you sure I didn't? Oh, well you can find magic items or monsters in many of the buildings, shrines, towers etc. which your troops can use. Items include magic axes, amulets of protection, staff of whirlwinds, magic books etc. Are you positive I've not told you about these before? I'm sure I'm repeating myself. You are sure you have read everything up to here and not seen any reference to magic items? I'll take your word for it then. Having made your decisions it is time to play the game. The campaign game is set over five continents of differing terrain. Natch the opposition gets tougher as you liberate the continents one by one. Each scenario has its own victory conditions which can be liberating or holding a town or you may just have to simply defeat the bad guys. You place your forces on the map within a specific deployment area and then you are raring to go. The good thing is that you always have the first move but the bad thing is that you may be given a time-limit to achieve a decisive result, so get a move on! You can choose to have hidden movement or you may wish to see the whole battlefield and all the units in the game. If you choose the latter then remember that the computer will be able to see all of your troops as well. There are various reports that you can also call up to see how the battle is progressing and how incredibly well you are doing, or not as the case may be. How do you play the game? Well you move your troops around the battlefield and attack the enemy pieces by bumping into them. What did you expect with a war game? Alright your siege engines can attack further away and do not have to bump into things but they are the only ones. Except for spellcasters of course, and any spells you may be able to throw into the mist of the battle. But they are the only ones, honest. Oh, by the way, the game is turn based i.e. each player moves in turn, one at a time and is not a case of everybody for themselves like in the over-rated game of Command and Conquer for example. That's alienated half of those people reading this review. I'm sorry if it's not good enough for you but that's the way I like 'em. I I know I've been waffling on for ages and in the end it all comes down to a bog standard war game but I don't care, no siree, not 1 i-o-ta. 5 GRAPHICS All in all I would class them as excellent, you can tell what is what no trouble. If I had to pick faults then perhaps they could have been a little bit bigger and it would have been nice if they were animated. Never the less neither point spoils the game in any way and as I said there is no problem in seeing and recognising the units, the Lionmen look like Lionmen and the Trolls look like Trolls etc. As for the background all I can say is that the terrain looks as it should. You get a variety of terrain throughout the game including swamps, forests, woods, grasslands, mountains, snow and ice, lava flows etc. They all look good and do not interfere with or obscure the units, which is nice. All in all I can say the graphics do their job and add to the overall atmosphere of the game. 6 SOUND As with the other Mindscape game I have reviewed, i.e. Warhammer: Shadow Of The Horned Rat, the in-game music is spot on and really suits the game. It is very much like choral music (but with orchestral music playing in the background) which I feel suits the fantasy setting very nicely. There are in fact 14 tracks on the CD which can be played in the same way as a normal music CD. They are all versions on a theme and are quite good, you certainly will not be bored with them quickly. If you do become bored then may I recommend the CD `Great Choral Classics' published by EMI as a suitable replacement, it only costs about five pounds and is great background music when playing adventure or RPG games. As for in-game sound effects I am afraid to say that it is a little disappointing, no clash of steel, no screams of triumph or fear, nothing in fact. Never mind, you can't have everything I suppose. 7 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS What can I say? I think you can tell I really like this game (note to myself: I must review a game I don't like for a change!) and if you are at all interested in Wargaming then I highly recommend this game to you. It is the one I am playing to the exclusion of all others at the moment and would have to put it in or very near my top ten games of all time (note to myself: write up my top ten list and send it to SynTax). If you have not played wargames before then maybe the fantasy setting will appeal more to you, I know they are my favourite kind of wargames. If so give it a try, I don't think you will be disappointed you did. If you do not like wargames then this one could be the one to change your mind, it is that good I feel. I would be interested to read the opinions of other readers, is it as good as I think? OF COURSE IT IS! - o -