Rating: 
Summary: Intellectually higher than most, but very slow paced...
Review: This game is basically a take-off on other turn-based stratigic games. Be expected to read through *and practically memorize* a large, over 100 page, manual. The music and animation is very well done, I admit. Basically, you get to pick one of several elements *no suprise there* and compete against others based on turns. You are expected to gain power, political standing, and skill as you proceed. Your ultimate goal is to unite with others and defeat the dark underworld-esc army. It's a pretty simple concept, but very drawn out. If you do love these stratigic games that give you ample mount of time to plan out and conceptualize whatever your next move may be, this is a good buy for you. However, be warned that this requires a lot of time and effort if you want to master it.
Rating: 
Summary: fun and interesting
Review: This game is good to work on your stratagy and fun to play. I have friends always wanting to play it. I am definitely going to be getting some as gifts for my friends.
Rating:
Summary: a challenge
Review: This game is one of the few games where you can't win the game just by clicking in random spots. You actually have to think about strategy.I got this game years ago and I still haven't beaten the order legends of urak mission even with the cheats!
Rating:
Summary: Could have been great, but is merely good.
Review: This game is very much worth buying at its listed price. This game has so much potential, but is somewat awkward and buggy in its interface. Let me give you some examples:1. Real time combat: As mentioned in the editorial review, this is extremely problematic and awkward. Because it is based on a 3/4 view, you lose sight of some of your units, and often it seems they do not immediately respond to your commands. Units end up in a scrum at the center of the screen, and don't readily disengage or advance. This is dissapointing considering "Lords of the Realm" which was not perfect either, had a much cleaner interface, and it is an older game. Lords of Magic would have been a much better game if the battle view was adjustable, and the speed of combat as well. If the units were more "Diablo" sized, or somewhere in between, it would have been a vast improvment. Also in ths same area, when entering dungeons and the like, your party can randomly turn up in strange places on the battle scape map, e.g. your sorceress is on the other side of the map all by herself, next to a group of trolls, when all her protection is on the other side separated by a physical barrier like water. This can mean certain death for a character you have spent much time developing, and makes no sense. If your party goes in as a unit they should appear that way on the battlescape. This is just poor design. 2. Hero Status bars: On the "overland" view, your heros have a pop up status card, showing their items, level, etc. These are so sparse that once you gain multiple magical items you have to create new heros just to have someone to off-load the items to in order to take an inventory of your items. When you have many parties on the board, this is maddening! 3. Overland spells: There is no feedback on overland spells (spells you cast while in the "world view"). You have no way of telling whether they worked, or what the affect was. ALso there are some spells that seem to not work at all, like transporting a magical item via magical means. 4. Fortesses: These are far to weak, and are awkward to defend. If any of you have played Lords of the Realm you know that castles are easily defended. Not in this game. There is no ability for your archers/javeliners to man the walls of the castle. You can direct them to that area, but often they just stand there or run around. They also gain no advantage from the height of the walls or the cover provided thereby. You just end up with a scrum at the front gate with everyone bunched together like Mattel vibrating football. This game is worth playing just to be able to use Balkoth after you complete it. The spells that "Death" can cast are really cool. Overall, I recommend this game at it's current listed price. It has some beautiful graffics, interesting story, and combines party based roll playing with RTS and turn based strategy. With some conceptual changes, this could be the greatest game ever.
Rating:
Summary: excellent
Review: this game was of atmost benevolence once i learned how to play i could not stop. i recomend this game to any real gamer, it involves military stategy. after you beat the game, if you havent already cheated try some codes from the cheat cc website.
Rating:
Summary: Lords of Magic
Review: This is a very old game- wow! 8 Years!
But the gameplay is compelling and the RPs made from this Tolkien-based game are fantastic. I give it 5 stars.
Rating:
Summary: The funnest single-player game I've found so far.
Review: This is an old game, but it's stayed very popular among fans, and still has a newsgroup at at Sierra's community page that is great for getting help. Before I talk about why I think it's one of the best games out there, I'll let you know this: If you are looking for fast-click games, or kill-a-minute multiplayer, this isn't the right game for you. The multiplayer is slow, and best on direct cable, LAN, or modem. The feel of the game is like an RPG, and lends itself to characterization, but there's no puzzle/clue/do-this-next kind of story line. Your chosen character and a few nameless friends (you can give them names) are thrown into a basic, simple situation (Bad Guy with magic is trying to kill everyone) with some complications (he's interrupting a 7-way war in progress, by trying to kill all the combatants, who wish he'd just go away and leave them to kill each other in peace) and some limitations (you can't raise much of an army until you prove you can kill something important). So you start with a simple quest. Find some big monument nearby that looks important, and kill everything inside. (Not to be confused with your own capital city, where people are likely to be surly but moderately helpful, and won't actually appear on screen, so there's nothing to kill). When you've found the right one (it's got an introduction message that fills the screen) and liberated it, the game changes. Suddenly you have renewable resources, new friends, a city at your disposal (more or less), and no one else tells you what to do any more. Literally. Except for the fact that someone's going to come looking for you eventually, and it would be a good idea to kill him when he does, there are absolutely no quest requirements for you to accomplish. You just explore, upgrade your buildings, and leave certain champions in training buildings to improve any new recruits or to rediscover forgotten spells. If you are more interested in assignments and puzzles, the game also includes a quest pack with a handful of quests with step-by-step objectives (but no way of stopping you if you decide to go the other way instead). The game is turn-based, and moves to real-time only when you enter combat. The graphics are simple, like pictures in a story book, and the over-land music is nice but not loud or adrenalin-pumping. Different music plays depending on where you start, and combat music is more lively. The landscape, people, and music work together to make you feel that this is a world worth defending against evil. Landscape ranges from lava and desert to swamp to meadows and grassland, and the landscape is 3D. An editor is provided so you can make your own maps. Some amazing results are possible. There is an extensive library of community-created maps available on-line from fan sites if you get tired of the default map. The magic and team (Faith) system is robust, with 8 different magic schools and sets of available characters. Although the types of characters are predictable (warrior, thief, mage, foot soldier, cavalry, ranged weapon, scout, magic creatures), the differences from one Faith to the next mean that you could easily have Knights facing Demons, or Dwarven axe-throwers facing Skeletons and Dark Elves. There are 8 different versions of every unit, except for the cavalry (only 4) and the magic creatures (32, from will o' the wisps to gargoyles, to dragons, to a Lich). The Faiths are elemental: Earth/Air, Fire/Water, and arcane: Order/Chaos, Life/Death. The units are predicted by the Faith, so Earth gets Dwarves, Air gets Fairies, Chaos gets Barbarians, Order gets Knights, etc., but you can trade for units or capture capitals and training facilities as you expand. Each faith has its own selection of spells, which can only be cast by a particular type of mage. Some of the spells have cool special effects, some of them just have a default flash or smoke ring, which might make it hard to tell what they've done. The spells range from Death's curse (light damage) and Life's Cure wounds (light healing) to Fire's Inferno (all units take deadly or near deadly damage), Death's Lost Soul (instant death, on contact, to any one enemy unit) and Life's Resurrection (restore any unit on battlefield to life). The spell books slowly become accessible, as you station mages in the library for "research." The combat screen is technically challenging and may have resulted in some frustration in those who give up easily. Although the units will attack automatically if someone comes in range, they don't do their best work that way, and mages are entirely helpless (magic on command only). The difference between letting everyone do their thing and managing all aspects of combat usually range from losing everyone to coming out without losing anyone. There's a pause button, that should be used liberally. You can give commands and begin casting spells while paused, and they hold action until you un-pause. Units generally begin together, unless your army is extremly large, but they occasionally get cut off. The game automatically saves as you enter combat, so you have a chance to go back and redo fights to correct what you did wrong. There are a handful of known bugs, but none of them significantly affect gameplay. Most of them can be worked around or even exploited to your advantage. If one of them is giving you grief, sierra's user newsgroup will quickly offer answers to your questions. You are likely to find that when you first start playing, minor achievements will seem difficult and rewarding, but as you gain experience the range of abilities will increase, and you may begin to focus more on exploration than on survival. The replayability of this game is extremely high, because there are 25 basic starting positions, 7 faiths x 3 character types + Evil Balkoth (after you beat him) + 3 other Death Lords available in custom games. Each of those positions can be customized with different starting resources, followers, spells, and artifacts, and of course, by playing different maps.
Rating: 
Summary: Awful
Review: This is possibly the worst game ever created. The graphics are awful, the music is depressing, the menu system is complicated and the battles are boring, unrealistic and difficult to manage. The only reason I got this game was because i saw it for 5 bucks. I had seen it in the store at retail(30$) and decided to wait. I am glad i did. I am a big fan of strategy games and RPG's, but this is just plain BAD. I would have given it negative stars if possible.It so utterly bad it is almost funny. Don't pay for this!...
Rating:
Summary: How awful this game really is.
Review: This is the worst game, don't even think of buying it unless you're a total "Dungeons and Dragon's" [lover]. It stinks, don't buy it.
Rating:
Summary: I can't stop playing!!
Review: This was the first turnbased strategy game I played, so I might not have much auuthority on how tottally awesome it is, but I just want to say that this game will keep you coming back for more. One frustrating thing is that even if load up all your followers into your capitol You have to wait days and days(that's gametime AND realtime) for enough resources to manage a sizable army. Also, it seems that nobody likes you and you have to keep giving away your money to get them to like you. I spent 60 of every resource on the water side and they're still neutral with me. Overall this is an addicting game and even realtime gamers who don't like the boardgame style of this will enjoy it.
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