Kohan II: Kings of War

Rating:
Summary: Great game, a good buy!
Review: Among real-time strategy (RTS) games distributed today, I would put this game next to Warcraft 3. It is really that good! I really enjoy the economy model, the heroes, and the units. Graphic is excellent and gameplay is straightfoward and simple. Of course, if I had to buy *only* one RTS game now, I would buy Warcraft 3 BattleChest.

But life is good and I could buy other games as well. This game is a lot like a Warcraft 3 clone. You basically create a group of soldiers led by a powerful hero (called a Kohan) to seek battle and wreak havoc. Different heros/Kohans can be recruited, and each have certain powers that can benefit the entire group. The group is called a company, and is composed of a frontline (tanks), a hero, and some support units (e.g., archers, mages, healers, etc). Kohan 2 takes away the micro-management during battle. All you do is create your group, position it, and send it to attack when you're ready. The computer AI will do the rest. There is no micro-management of the individual unit during battle. I think this is a great thing, since this will streamline gameplay during large skirmishes with over 50 units.

The main difference between this game and Warcraft 3 is the economy structure. As you know, the Warcraft series require you to take down forest and mine gold and other resources. In Kohan 2, you do not need to take down forests. Instead, you can generate resources from within your city by building the appropriate structures. For example, in my city, I could choose to build a woodmill, which will give me more wood. This is important, because certain unit depends on wood (like archers). A deficiency in a resource will hamper the ability to support certain units and the overall power of the army. On the other hand, a surplus is a good thing, as it can not only benefit the army, but also there is an option to set up an "export system" to exchange extra resources for gold. In order to decisively win this game and other RTS game, a good economy is a must, and I'm glad to see Kohan 2 has implemented a good model for it.

In closing, this is an excellent alternative to Warcraft 3. The story-line takes a back step though. It's really very simple (good vs evil, blah blah blah). There are about the same amount of races to play as well. Strangely, in Kohan 2, the dwarves are known as Guari and the Elves are called Haroun. I don't get that. The races have units that are unique to them (elves have powerful archers and so forth). The animation is good, and sometimes it's just fun to see the screen filled with 100 units battling it out. Just pure mayhem! If you want a change from Warcraft, give this game a try.

Rating:
Summary: nice and good interface
Review: The game takes away some of the time spending micromanagement tasks that most games have... Instead of spending time figuring out where to place buildings (required for upgrades and extra units) they are automatically built within the city, this allows for quicker army setup and allows to focus more on the strategy skills... I must admit the computer opponet is very clever and it takes time to adjust to this way of playing...

Overall, the game is great it doesn't allow for customized cities but then again we all develop a standard building placement plan after a couple of games...

The random map feature does a great job of laying out new maps for unlimited play alternatives....

Rating:
Summary: Solid
Review: There is really no better way to describe this game than 'solid'. The graphics are n't great, but OK. The gameplay is not super addictive, but OK. The story (and story telling) is not the best I've ever seen, but in most cases, it gets the job done. The game has good production values.

There just is a little something the game lacks. The tacticts are just not quite tactical enough. If everything else fails, speed up the time and wait until you have maxed out your army and tech trees. The tech trees are interesting, but most of the time, you just max things out as individual advantages are not obvious enough (OK, so have have a +10 attack bonus... but how do I really see that? I have flaming arrows, but there is no visible clue?) to make them worth considering. You never find yourself researching just one more thing that will allow you to do X so your plan works out. The plan always is to send out troops in masses and pull units back when they get to weak. Researching never truely influences that plan a lot. You just may have to pull back and wait for some more research to up your stats, and then re-try your 'plan'.

The game is also a bit slow-paced. I found myself playing at 200% time acceleration a lot.

Nevertheless, the game is compelling enough to keep me playing (all the way through the campaign in fact). It just can't quite compete with current top-titles like Warhammer.

Rating:
Summary: what a total an utter let down
Review: what a disappointment this game has turned out to be. A tremendous fan of the original and its expansion, I was really looking forward to the sequel. (considering the advancements in graphics that have been made)

to begin let me start on what is good about the game,

The AI of the computer units seem to be good, however this is countered with the poor AI of your friendly units. some of my men just stand around when their is work to be done. However, this should not surprise me because when ever I click on the engineers the voice acting lets out a complaint somewhat along the line of "oh man, more work?!" in such a tone that I just grit my teeth. I work all day with people who complain about doing work, I don't need my computerized army complaining about building a fort or marching off to their death. fortunately you can shut this off. Long gone is the original " I will not let my people down ! " from the first game.

ok now lets move on to what is bad.

1. clutter- the viewing area is blocked by some much junk from the bottom information panel which is greatly oversized, to the units id which appears as a giant circle that hovers over the unit.
the overview map sits cockeyed in the lower left corner just taking up space. next to it is a ridiculous cartoon head of the main character in the unit you have selected.

2. asinine looking units and weapons. Although I enjoy fantasy, I don't thing a crossbow should be a plasma cannon in disguise, a plasma cannon the size of a shoulder launched rocket that is. The character running around are huge and disproportionate, taking on the look of the units from warcraft which I never particularly cared for. the arms on some of the men are gigantic and look foolish.

3. upgrades don't seem to have any noticeable effect, your units are just better but it is nothing you will notice on the map. even if you could see your idiotic looking units improve on the map, the unit id icon mentioned above would be blocking your men.

If you are looking for a good RTS game look no further than Rome Total War ! that game has it right.Where on the earlier total war games I did not play the tactical battles on Rome I have played almost all. The battles on that game are what I am looking for. Every man that is killed in the battle will have his body left on the field, as a result, by the end the carnage is all over the place, it is tremendous to see.
the battles are nothing short of spectacular, and you can actually manage and control your units in combat zooming in or out (something that Kohan 2 is also lacking)

I could go on and on with other things that I don't like or enjoy but I feel that I have already given this game to much of my time. I am not sure what the rest of you are looking for in a game, I would just like to warn a few people from falling into the trap that I fell into on this game, with the gaming magazine reviews of 78% and 3.5 stars out of 5. I was thinking I would enjoy this since I liked the original so much, figuring the original would be improved on, however, the game may play like the original, but does not feel like it in the least bit

Rating:
Summary: the biggest waste of money
Review: wow...this is so much like the warcraft battlechest that its not even worth buying. i mean, you have hero units that don't die, gain experience and cast spells. just go out and get the battlechest for about half the price and voila...you have Kohan two.

if i could, i would get my money back