Publisher: Microsoft
Ages: Teens & up
Parental
Advisory:
Violence and hideous creatures
Just last year, Kingdom Under Fire: Crusaders offered an excellent action and strategy game. This year's worthy sequel, Microsoft's Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes, which is actually a prequel in terms of story, makes a great game even better.
Set five years before "Crusaders," there's a great evil that's brewing between the worlds of men, orcs, elves and vampires, and the various light and dark sides are plotting and ready to fight. If the plot sounds much like the setting of a Tolkien novel, it is.
The game offers a new cast of characters and some 50 medieval battlefields in its single player campaign modes. There are seven campaigns and players get to choose leaders for each one. Compared to the prior title, the game offers deeper strategic elements and more power moves.
Strategic battles are what make the game, and for this, the title offers epic, action-packed and chaotic fights with huge armies. To prevail, players have to coordinate and direct several units, and, at times, even control their main character. And when players aren't engaged in battle, they're upgrading and training their troops.
Excellent multi-player features support up to six players via Xbox Live in an arcade-style hero battle mode, strategic troop battle mode and the cooperative invasion mode. There are also spectator and fair-match modes so newbies can have a fighting change.
The 3-D graphics are colorful and detailed and do a great job of depicting the action and environments. While the game emphasizes strategy, there's lots of graphic violence and blood.
Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes is the worthy successor to Kingdom Under Fire: Crusaders. As such, the title builds on everything that was already great. This is an excellent game.
-Wayne N. Kawamoto
