Heaven and Hell - Live and Let Die

                Demo from www.heavengame.com

                      Reviewed by Sue

From the title, it's pretty obvious that Heaven and Hell is a
'god' game. The demo contains a brief tutorial showing you how to
use the controls, and a single mission.

The game takes as its basis the age-old fight between good and
evil. You can play on either side. I was good, of course! The aim
is to be the deity with the most worshippers after 30 minutes
play. There are easy and hard difficulty levels. Guess which one I
picked?

On my side of the map were four towns, the same on evil's side.
All the towns on my side were basically good, though some had a
few neutral houses. Evil's worked in the same way. Between the two
opposing lands was a mountain range with a valley running through
it. There was a further neutral town in here.

Basically towns have a good / evil setting according to how many
people in the town are on each side.  The belief of the people
also affects their house. So if someone is converted to your side,
their house also goes from neutral to good. A good house can be
put to use by turning it into a mana producer or a house that
enforces the loyalty of the people. Each of these has three
upgrade levels. If you select the main building in the town, it
will show you how many people live in it and the numerical balance
between good and evil. As the game progresses, hopefully the
balance will move towards your side.

The 'currency' in the game is mana. Everything you do uses up
mana. How do you get more? From mana-producing houses. So the
first thing you need to do when starting the game is turn a few
good houses into mana producers.

And how do you use the mana? Well, working for your cause are
certain special people. At the start of the game you have a
Baptisbon and a Beat-up O'Bon. The Baptisbon goes round performing
miracles - creating a rainbow or an angel if you're a goody - and
preaching. As people's faith increases through his words, they
will go from neutral to good. Another soul saved!  The Beat-up
O'Bon (how do they think up these names?) is the warrior class.

There are other 'Bons'. These are a Camelbon, a Construct O'Bon,
Antibon, Clandibon and Boss O'Bon. You can convert suitable
inhabitants into one of these special people, but only at the
expense of mana. A Camelbon can build paths from one town to
another and increases the belief in the cities by sending a
caravan from a good city to one with a lower belief value.

If some of your people hear too many sermons, they become fanatics
and go round beating up any non-believers. But if one of your
prophets loses his faith he swaps his robes for a barrel and
becomes a hermit!

Like all these sorts of games, once you get on a roll, you can
easily sweep across the board. But if you get behind your
opponent, it's hard to get back believers and buildings because
your mana starts to drop.

I did try evil briefly but I preferred the good side. I prefer
patting people on the head to slapping them and creating rainbows
rather than fiery demons.

The demo is fun but tricky. But I enjoyed it enough that I brought
a copy of the full game through eBay. The full game has 20
missions.









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