In my opinion, you can't have a proper strategy game without
skeletons and casters. I'm a discrete fan of the strategy genre only when
fantasy is involved, as I'm not big on history and epics inspired by it. This
means that for the past few years, a certain franchise has been turning me away
from the genre, but now, with a promise of ogres, rats and dragons, I
approached this game with optimism and discovered that it is a mana-infused
graveyard full of potential.
Warlock: Master of the Arcane is a new turned-based strategy
game set in the fantastical world of Ardania where monsters and adversaries
lurk under the fog. There is no story mode as of yet, and as this is still an
early build of the game, I was only able to experience the gameplay and general
feel.
The game starts off with your basic map size/game difficulty
options and has you select one of 12 preset mages to represent your forces, or
create one of your own. Once in, it did not take me long to grasp its layout
and interface. There is a plethora of menu items and options available for you,
but the game is very welcoming and it all proved to look more complicated than
it actually is. Once you become familiar with the interface, the game opens up
and offers a streamlined experience of fun that translates in to a black hole
of game time.
You start off with a capital city where most everything will
be taking place until you conquer other castles. From there, you are given the
power to build farms that provide produce to maintain your population, and
train warriors, rangers and mages to do the fighting for you. The interface is
a bit on the clunky side for my liking, and even though this game is all about
the strategy, a little tweak could have gone a long way in eliminating the
drabness of the grey, browns and blues that dominate your castle menu.
Aesthetics aside, the game still requires some ironing and core duties such as
managing your resources were tasking and I found myself struggling to maintain
an army, versus produce as well as justifying why up-keeping it requires mana.
It could be a balancing issue, but for a game based on warlocks and magic, I
wasn't doing much casting due to the lack of sufficient mana and the time delay
required for some spells to be ready.
There are also some inconsistencies that
currently plague the game. After completing a building, you have to wait a
turn or two before issuing another build order and some missions you receive
during the game were illogical, asking you to build a harbor when the only body
of water available in your vicinity is a small pond.
During your progress, you will encounter your opponents in
battle and you will be given diplomacy options. You may either s all out
war on them, make a pact, or demand offerings of gold and mana from them. In my
time with the game, I wasn't able to grasp the importance of allying yourself
with another great mage or declaring war versus demanding gold and mana from
them, which always made more sense to me. I'm sure this will be dealt with upon
final launch of the game as the AI is still being balanced and worked on.
In return for these issues, however, the game has immense
potential and offered me a phenomenal experience that had me go through the
classic just-one-more-turn syndrome. Every turn and coming of a new day had me
watching the screen anxiously as my opponents played out their moves: Will they
attack? Will the monsters involve themselves in battle? Do I have enough mana
to cast that devastating spell?
It is this fun factor that I look forward to
when playing games and it is that same factor that always goes the distance in
proving that its not what the game is dressed in or how it moves around, but
what it gives you in terms of entertainment. I for one cannot wait for the full
release, saddened, as I am that the multiplayer will not available on launch.
It will be made available later during the year and it had better come with
offline hot-seat!
Sparkileptic is an avid gamer and critic who dabbles with the written word.