Thousands of units on the battlefield simultaneously
The problem starts when you approach a group of enemies. There is a certain activation point when they’ll start to move towards you to attack. If you run away they’ll back off at a certain point and go scuttling back to the area where they had originally spawned. This means that you can constantly step over this invisible marker to make them come towards you and then back off again just before they reach, firing arrows at them from behind with little threat. It’s a pretty monotonous way of doing things, but if you have the patience you can destroy a whole army of undead or goblins without incurring any damage. This strategy doesn’t work in every battle situation, but in many scenarios it does; for example, in the second level of campaign mode, you’ll come across a Minotaur guarding a magic spell. The creature is pretty tough to beat if you were to tackle him face to face, but by simply moving forward, hitting him with a couple of arrows to alert him, and then backing off to a certain area, he’ll retreat allowing you to unleash a couple more shots for free. Okay, it took a good 5 minutes to beat him using this method, but it meant that we didn’t have to use any of our magic spells or potions to help out our hero, which sort of spoilt what could have been a great battle.
Click for larger imageThe game isn’t constantly plagued with these easy to win battles and the enemy are tough to beat in the later levels when the AI become more adept at attacking and will use healers and a resurrector to ensure some great battles.
Pegasus Lake on mission five is a prime example of some viciously accurate AI. The enemy attacks from different direction with such force that we died time after time trying to defeat the enemy, and despite these huge armies on screen at any one time, we didn’t experienced any slowdown.
As you kill enemies your hero will move up a level, allowing you to distribute points and unlock weapons, potions and new magical items. The hero has 13 stats that can be enhanced including movement speed, firing range and the speed in which mana is restored. The interface for distributing these points is simple and easy to use.
Click for larger imageThe hero interface shows you the attacking and defence statistics as well as the inventory where you can equip 49 items, from weapons and special abilities to spells and auras. The hero can only hold carry 13 items on his belt, so it’s a case of choosing wisely and switching to suitable items depending on your current scenario.