Game Overview

Publisher: Ubi Soft
Developer: Strategic Studies Group
Warlords Battlecry IIofficial home page: http://www.warlordsbattlecry2.com/

Warlords Six

Warlords Battlecry II is the heir to a long line of strategy games. The first Warlords, published in the early 90’s, was a turn-based strategy game. Besides the obvious differences, the concept was the same – build armies and conquer lands in a fantasy setting. Keeping up with gaming trends, Warlords has been updated to the RTS genre with Battlecry. Now they attempt to perfect their foray into the real-time world with Battlecry II

The money shot

My personification

Etheria

Normally at this part of a Firingsquad review we’d talk about the game’s story. Well, in Battlecry II there is no semblance of a story anywhere to be seen. Not in the single player campaign or even the documentation. Some games can get away without a story, Quake III Arena for example. Battlecry II isn’t one of those games – without a story there’s nothing to pull you into the game’s world. Stories add personality and something for you to care about while you’re playing. I had a hard time figuring out why anything was going on in this game.

Graphics and Sound

Battlecry II exhibits a unique graphical style. Each race has a distinct style of buildings and units, and there are many different map types. It’s tough to create so many units and buildings for eight races, but it’s done well in this game. As a whole, the style of each race is easy to see. On the other hand, one big problem with the graphics in Battlecry II is the lack of detail. Even in the lowest resolution (800x600), where the units are the largest on the screen, there isn’t a whole lot you can make out. You can see the bows and arrows, but the only thing discerning one archer from the next is the base colors.

Buying an army

The Retinue

We were heroes

The models in Battlecry II lack sufficient animation. I liked the look of the units and the buildings, but they don’t move enough. Each unit only has one attack/spell animation, and there isn’t much to the idle animations. This is a far cry from the excellent animation in Battle Realms. Battlecry II could definitely use some more flair.

Screen resolution is a big issue in Battlecry II. You can play from 800x600 to 1600x1200 – the screenshots had to be taken at 800x600 because of the file sizes. As you can see there’s not a lot of the battlefield on the screen, which is a real problem in RTS games. I preferred to play the game at 1280x1024. At this resolution there’s a lot of the map on the screen at once, and the units are still big enough to click on. At 1600x1200 everything’s too small, and too hard to click on. Also, at higher resolutions the frames per second drop, making the whole game feel sluggish.

The music is pretty unremarkable. I personally didn’t like the soundtrack, but music is very subjective (or course, so are game reviews…). Most of it is a classical/medieval feel, with plenty of choral melodies. The sound effects are also unremarkable. Battles all sound the same, no matter which races are fighting – a bunch of metal clanging and units wailing as they die. Even the spell effects are unmemorable.