|
 |
Tuesday, November 2, 2004.
by KmanX
Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders
Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders is an RTS (real time strategy) game and I made a very critical error very early on. My mistake? Being too aggressive? Nope. Too conservative then? Pffft, hardly. The tactical error that has crippled my progress in this game was throwing out the press materials that came with this review build. Discarding the materials without reading them to be exact. Perhaps if I had read the materials I would have understood just what exactly this game is supposed to be. I say that because it’s not like any RTS (this one does have some RPG elements to it as well) I have ever played before. I found this to me a hybrid “hack n’ slash Command and Conquer for dummies” type of game. It’s weird.
The story of Kingdom Under Fire centres around the standard theme of all RTS games – war. This war sees a human consortium batting the Dark Legion, gang of thugs comprised ogres, orcs and other assorted creatures bearing a similar likeness. With all wars you battle for territory and supremacy. That’s the gist of the story anyways. The plot developments unravel during terrible cuts censes that are in the form of the text-based chatter. This on screen banter is terrible. It occurs after you have completed a battle. The heads of characters appear on screen and yammer back and forth. To say the least it’s disappointing. After epic battles you would expect some kind of cinematic cuts scene. Instead you are treated to headshots of characters and a lot of incessant babble. I grew very tired of this very quickly and skipped 99.9% of it, thus missing out on some plot development.
Its too bad they developers chose not include cut scenes because they would have been a great compliment to the in game graphics which are well done and they get better as the game goes on. I say that because as the game goes on the battles get larger and there is a lot on going onscreen but the performance does not suffer. The game does not experience any chugging and the frame rates seemed to stay strong. This is important, especially when there are up to 100 combatants on screen at one time. The last thing you want is for the game to start chugging. It’s easy enough to loose a character in a battle of that size so not having the game chug through is a nice touch.
What’s also a nice touch is how the developers handled these massive battles. As I just mentioned, its very easy to get lost in the crowd when fighting. To help combat getting lost in errrr, ummm, well, combat, you will notice that some characters will go transparent. That effect is neat because it helps find your way, kind of, but also because those translucent characters keep on fighting. This can be a bit of a hindrance though as you can’t always tell which direction you are being attacked from.
The environments these massive battles take place in are really quite lame as the battle areas are usually one big square and they always seem to look the same. They have the same features – trees, creeks, hills, etc. and open fields. It’s these open fields that the battles take place so there really isn’t much to talk about. The environmental effects are ok but bad.
I will reserve the term bad for the music. No I won’t actually because that would be kind. In fact I would go so far as to say that this is the worst music I have heard in a video game to date and yes I am the one who reviewed Sudeki. Why is this music so bad? Well, you fight against orcs with what’s basically gladiators so you would think the music would feature a score that would compliment the period right? WRONG! Instead they pass off the worst cheesy rock music that sounds like it was picked up off of the cutting room floor a 1980s wrestling co-op arcade machine. The soundtrack is just one electric guitar track after another and it’s horrible. The first time I head it I actually rebooted the game because I thought I was hearing things. Sadly I wasn’t. Who knows, you could play this game and dig the music but it certainly was not for me. They should have had period music. Imagine what it would be like listening to 50 Cent’s “In Da Club” in the Lord of the Rings when Frodo was fighting the spider. Just makes no sense. It’s just weird as the voice acting is decent. Just like the graphics, one area really stands out, albeit bad in this case, where as the rest not out of the ordinary.
Ordinary is also a good word to describe the game play. As mentioned the game is pretty much a hack n’ slash which translates to the game play is nothing special. It can get intense for the massive battles but the controls are so straight forward it’s not really an issue. As the levels are loading, tips for different attack methods will be offered along with instruction for how to do them. Don’t worry about trying to memorize them quickly; you will have a lot of time because the load times are long. Painfully long to be more precise. Actually I thought Kingdom 2 had been released during the time I was waiting for the very first mission to load. OK so that’s a bit of an exaggeration but its bad. Almost as bad as the thought of a sequel to this game.
It’s too bad too because I was looking forward to this game but in the end, I was really disappointed with it. The combo of RTS, RPG and HnS was just too weird for me. To be fair I didn’t take this one online. Maybe it’s a lot better on Live but if I couldn’t get into this one offline then there was no way I was going to take it online. There are games that aren’t too hot offline but are a rockshow online.
Suggestions: FIX THE MUSIC!!!!
Overall: 6.0 / 10
Gameplay: 6.0 / 10
Visuals: 6.0 / 10
Sound: 2.0 / 10
|
|
|
|
|
| Write your own review of Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders. Click Here. |
|
|
|
Xbox 360 Titles: 817
Xbox 360 Arcade Titles: 448
Xbox Titles: 832
Registered Members: 42,517
Forum Posts: 734,282
Staff Reviews: 1,063
Member Reviews: 10,339
News Articles: 10,941
Screenshots: 24,438
Xbox 360 Achievements: 36,090
Xbox 360 Faceplates: 2,016
Cheat Codes: 1,706
|
1. phuture 909 - 123,212
2. Unreal - 122,015
3. Symmetric-XBA - 89,725
4. tacohead - 80,991
5. Nato King-XBA - 60,413
6. 12buckmafia-XBA - 57,474
7. Variation-XBA - 54,765
8. Timmy Bauer - 51,965
9. Steeps5 - 34,799
10. Silent-XBA - 33,275
11. Enamelized420-XBA - 32,341
12. Kamshaft-XBA - 25,234
13. angeto - 24,628
14. oddjob428 - 23,850
15. Symmetrics Love - 22,540
16. thAshAdyOne - 19,865
17. SpaceGhost2K-XBA - 16,170
18. Alx1138-XBA - 15,610
19. Ainokeatoo-XBA - 15,041
20. Tampad - 15,009
21. Ricepuppet - 14,722
22. Bakeman - 14,082
23. Soda Jones - 11,958
24. mattgame - 11,925
25. HaZarD SFD-XBA - 11,722
|
| (Top 150) |
|
|
 |
Deadlight
Post by Timmy Bauer
2 Replies, 178 Views
|
Amazing Skyrim cover!
Post by Kamshaft-XBA
3 Replies, 201 Views
|
Trials Evolution
Post by Kamshaft-XBA
2 Replies, 166 Views
|
Kingdoms of Amalur:...
Post by Symmetric-XBA
22 Replies, 436 Views
|
Xbox 360 Kiosk Discs
Post by Ed Hunter
13 Replies, 478 Views
|
Can you convert old...
Post by mutha_ucka
0 Replies, 241 Views
|
Batman Arkham City =...
Post by mattgame
4 Replies, 443 Views
|
Play free FIFA 12 game...
Post by adrean
0 Replies, 295 Views
|
Apple iPad2…Is it a...
Post by adrean
4 Replies, 294 Views
|
PS4, Xbox 720...
Post by adrean
16 Replies, 522 Views
|
Best 5 video game...
Post by adrean
5 Replies, 353 Views
|
What have you been...
Post by FPSMadPaul
16 Replies, 468 Views
|
Best strategy game for...
Post by Jinty.Maginty
7 Replies, 430 Views
|
Need Help w/ NEW...
Post by IzzyOwnsYouAll
8 Replies, 440 Views
|
2 profiles, deleted...
Post by ame8199
5 Replies, 349 Views
|
|
 |
1. l Maximus l - 15,769
2. Variation-XBA - 13,482
3. mattgame - 13,012
4. Soda Jones - 4,423
5. Shadow20002 - 4,258
6. Nato King-XBA - 4,119
7. Sam-XBA - 4,111
8. Ainokeatoo-XBA - 3,677
9. Fargoth - 3,573
10. Silent-XBA - 3,409
11. SpaceGhost2K-XBA - 3,212
12. DocHoliday78 - 3,089
13. vman - 2,353
14. thAshAdyOne - 2,328
15. Bakeman - 2,076
16. Kamshaft-XBA - 1,859
17. Symmetric-XBA - 1,638
18. Unreal - 1,550
19. HaZarD SFD-XBA - 1,348
20. Enamelized420-XBA - 1,289
21. Steeps5 - 1,079
22. BigJosh359 - 971
23. Motoko - 917
24. EMX - 803
25. MoonTar - 290
26. Symmetrics Love - 171
27. scozzard - 162
28. Ricepuppet - 138
29. Alx1138-XBA - 131
30. pierrevincy - 130
31. oddjob428 - 104
32. wasabisabi - 102
33. tacohead - 98
34. Timmy Bauer - 90
35. angeto - 84
36. phuture 909 - 77
37. Tampad - 51
38. 12buckmafia-XBA - 48
39. blueamcat - 46
40. kaori30 - 31
41. Ed Hunter - 16
42. The Mattbox - 15
43. Pepsi - 6
44. legend80 - 5
45. DBMB - 2
46. Autn5 - 2
47. Gali - 1
48. benwhite - 1
49. Stellar91 - 1
50. ZorgX - 1
|
 |
1. Yellowlab - 121
2. Variation-XBA - 114
3. mattgame - 95
4. Highlite23-XBA - 89
5. Young_Fledgling - 82
6. Sam-XBA - 80
7. Megaherz *RAGE* - 74
8. The Jackal - 74
9. xj74 - 73
10. Shadow20002 - 67
11. CrazyCougar - 66
12. mrmp3 - 65
13. xdragon - 62
14. oddworld20-3000 - 59
15. Silent-XBA - 59
16. Kamshaft-XBA - 57
17. BlindSniper - 56
18. natewebb - 56
19. (ScArab) - 56
20. Marc - 53
21. Symmetric-XBA - 49
22. Whisper - 47
23. Xbox Masta 4 - 43
24. Sharky53 - 42
25. Y2D - 42
26. Lord Vivic - 41
27. JediMasterChief - 40
28. thunder0810 - 39
29. adzmullz1 - 39
30. Ninjermy - 38
31. Blind-RazoR - 38
32. MixMasta - 38
33. Alx1138-XBA - 38
34. kenji - 37
35. JayMan36 - 36
36. DaGameBoy - 36
37. Liquid Gears - 35
38. murken - 33
39. mentat - 33
40. RichVGS - 32
41. wweomaniac - 31
42. 12buckmafia-XBA - 31
43. asammw - 31
44. BillyDKid - 30
45. Folgerboy-XBA - 30
46. George89 - 30
47. pvsurfer03 - 29
48. CrazyKane - 28
49. super_ryu - 28
50. colosso - 28
|
|