Year ago, Black Cactus released their first title, the 3D real-time strategy game Warrior Kings, through publisher Microids. The game received a lot of attention due to its truly massive 3D maps and its hundreds of units on screen. The stand-alone sequel Warrior Kings: Battles is set 100 years after the events in the first Warrior Kings. The Kingdom forged by Artos collapsed after the current ruler was assassinated by a fanatical zealot, and now the whole of Orbis has fallen into anarchy. Every local warlord has seen their chance to grab a piece of land, and wars are being fought across the whole continent. The player is given the task of once again, reuniting the lands of Orbis, by the use of diplomacy and warfare.

Warrior Kings: Battles looks and runs very much like the first game. Similar in terms of units, formations and use of terrain. It's mostly the same units as before, but there are a few new ones such as the Arch Druid and the mighty Imperial War Elephant. The unit's are more balanced, strengthening the combined arms. There are a few other general enhancements too. If we're talking about gameplay, the maps have been well designed to force you into using different strategies depending on whether you are given a good defensive position. If there is one thing that the gameplay excels in it is the AI. The AI is damn good, it will test your defences, look for weaknesses and try different avenues and different combinations of units. However it gets very hard, very soon. Actually, I'm finding it hard to get beyond about half way through the campaign.

Warrior Kings: Battles features large strategic campaign with 22 missions (~over 35-40 hours of single player), a comprehensive skirmish game to allow you to fight against 70+ AI Generals (with their own personalities and strategies) + when you defeated these, you can create your own AI's, dynamically evolving game path - you decide which path to follow - the path of Imperial Knights, the Pagan demons, or the Renaissance scientists - each with a unique range of amazing units, abilities and strategies, over 70 different unit types of combat waging tools (cavalry, rocket launchers, catapults, spies, war elephants, arch druids, elementals, golems, summoned beings...) and over 35 building types.

The game also finally comes complete with a full skirmish mode and a new multiplayer mode called Valhalla (alike CTF - ideal re-spawning army without resource building) - the mode is points based, a number of flags appear on the map and while your in possession of them you generate points. The twist is that when your units die they automatically re-spawn back at your base, adding to the fast paced mayhem. One big advantage in all multiplayer modes is that they can be saved out at any time.

Overall, I think it's a great game, especially if you really like the strong tactical element. Warrior Kings: Battles is truly good value for money despite the similarities to the first game. Well done Black Cactus. You can try this playable demo (224MB).

System Requirements:
Minimum: 733MHz Processor, 128MB RAM, Windows 98/2000/ME/XP, DirectX 8.1, 16MB 3D card, 8x CD drive speed, 800MB HDD space, Mouse, Keyboard
Recommended: 900MHz Processor, 256MB RAM, Windows XP, 32MB 3D card, 32x CD drive speed, 1GB HDD space.
Multiplayer game: 56Kb/s for 2 player, 128Kb/s for 3 players, 256Kb/s and above for 4+ players