Cultures 2 : The Gates of Asgard demo
               JoWood / Funatics Development

                    Part of SynTax CD 2

                      Reviewed by Sue

On a quest for answers and adventure, you will discover hitherto
unknown lands, meet new nations ... and awaken an ancient serpent!

So says the intro to the demo to Cultures 2. I thoroughly enjoyed
the original ... I actually finished it! So I was looking forward
to seeing what improvements had been made to the follow-up.

There are two scenarios in the demo. The New Land and The Big
Battle. The New Land is a sandbox level with no specific goals but
as you play and make achievements, you'll be given little messages
which point you in the right direction for your next move. This is
useful for those who haven't played the original game. The Big
Battle is, as you'd expect, a military level. You'll quickly see 
what changes have been made to the game. There are healing potions 
to collect and use, more weapons and armour, and chests to loot.

But I concentrated on The New Land because to me the fighting was
always the least interesting part of the game.  In this scenario,
the Vikings have just one house at their disposal plus the
contents of their ship. A few hints are given as you play. For
example, it's suggested that you concentrate on food production at
first as well as extracting raw materials.

Cultures 2 is very much an advance on its predecessor.  Generally
the lack of a manual or any instructions wasn't a hindrance
because I'd played the original, I could work out what to do most
of the time. But I'm sure that in the first game you left-clicked
to perform certain actions (eg assign a Viking to a particular
house) and now it's a right-click which felt very wrong. For some
time I couldn't work out why I got a "brppt" sound when clicking
on a building, muttering "Go there, you fool!" and getting very
annoyed with the Vikings who totally ignored my commands.

Each character now has a lot more options. Everyone can be
assigned a vehicle. Everyone can fight any vehicle, building,
animal or inhabitant. Correct. Any MAN can do all these things.
Women can only attack inhabitants.  Basically, as in the first
game, they are home makers and breeding machines, first and
foremost.

As you'd expect, the graphics are better, more colourful and
detailed. The houses have a much richer texture than before. There
are more buildings and items. If conditions are right, bakers can
now make bread or cakes. Potters can make crockery, tiles and
bricks. This depends on the level of the building. Buildings can
be improved. So a Pottery 1, which makes bricks, can be upgraded
into a Pottery 2 which produces tiles and then to a Pottery 3 for
crockery. Or you can build each one directly, once your Potter has
reached the appropriate experience level.  Extractors can ... erm
... excavate quarrystone, clay, wood or mushrooms. Quarrystone
then has to be turned into stone. You can build beehives, cattle
farms, Alchemists huts, herb huts. Yes, there's a lot going on.

Sadly, but not unexpectedly, there's no save routine in the demo.
So just as I was getting into a game, I'd have to quit to do
something else like work or hoovering. The more I played, the more
I enjoyed the game. Though I thought I probably wouldn't want to
play another Cultures game, this new one is different enough from
the original to attract me.  I just hope there's not too much
fighting in it!












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