CELTIC KINGS: RAGE OF WAR


The King, or just another imitator?

By MARTIN KINGSLEY

Vikings are good. Beer, facial hair, broadswords…more beer, axes, helmets with pointy bits on…Did we mention beer?

Unfortunately, our Gallic hero Larax seems to be lacking on at least two of these fronts. He doesn't do a whole lot of beer-quaffing, either, which came a great disappointment. I mean, what is cooler than a drunk Viking, I ask you?

Anyway, back to Larax: He lives in a small village in Gaul, with his wife, who has one of the most disconcerting hairstyles ever seen inside of a pre-rendered cutscene, as well as a disturbing lack of ears.

This cosmetic situation is quickly remedied, as the downright uncivilised Teutons ride into town and then burn it to the ground, taking the entire population of the village with it.

Larax is away at this time and comes back to find a scene of carnage. He learns of the Teutons guilt in the matter and makes a pact with his Goddess to grant him unearthly powers to fulfill his quest for vengeance.

So begins Celtic Kings (CK), the first effort of Bulgarian designers Haemimont (no, I have no idea what it means either) and, for a first effort, it's good. Not excellent or revolutionary, but good.

Why only good? Well, let's take it from the top, shall we?

First of all, Celtic Kings is one of the new wave of RTS/RPG hybrids. Games such as Gothic and (to a lesser extent) Warcraft 3 epitomise this genre.

In CK, all units level up, gaining experience and strength as they go, ultimately becoming beef cakes, which makes the player want to protect them more, instead of just producing units en masse (cough, Red Alert, cough).

To replace the tedium of being confined to the usual "gather resources, build base, kill opponent" missions, there are plenty of varied missions included, with goals such as exploration or just plain combat, as well as letting you engage in large-scale battles with the troops you have recruited.

There are also a whole bunch of sub-quests that pop up during play, a la Warcraft 3. Unfortunately, strategy gamers are going to feel a little short-changed when it comes to the RTS side of Celtic Kings.

All you really have to do is build up a decent peasant population, then gather some gold and food off the outlying villages as tribute. While there are tech upgrades and different buildings that can be used to improve your fighting skills or economy, it's safe to say that Celtic Kings doesn't have the world's most complex resource model.

To compensate, there are plenty of units to recruit, when you are lucky enough to actually have a headquarters. You start off with your basic soldiers and archers, then proceed to work your way up to cavalry, and specialised warriors/healers.

The variety is nice, although you can only have 50 units in your army at any one time, as Celtic Kings is more focused on small-unit tactics, like Warcraft 3.

This would have been alright if the character missions were large and had lots to get your teeth into, but unfortunately, they quickly become overly simplistic and score almost zero in the interactivity stakes.

Visually, CK is nothing to write home about. Since it's sprite-based, that was to be expected, but some of the landscapes… Bleagh! Haemimont seems to have been working with a "mud" colour scheme, which is definitely reflected in the landscapes.

The units are a little better, though they seem to be missing a few frames when it comes to the combat animations, and the death animations are completely lacking of the one thing that makes them "death" animations: Blood!

Not a single drop of blood is spilled onscreen during the entire game. When units die, it literally looks like they're taking "The Big Sleep!"

Possibly the worst aspect of the game is the audio. The music is all MIDI synthesized, which is a bit sad. Is it that hard to get some half-decent musicians to put together a few ambient tracks that use actual instruments?

At least the music isn't irritating, which is more than can be said for some games. If worst comes to worst, you can always turn it off... However, this just makes the truly shoddy voiceovers even more obvious, which is the one thing you don't need.

The characters only have 1 or 2 different sounds each, and all of them sound lame.

Another thing they have in common is the unique characteristic of annoying the hell out of the player. After hearing your hero proclaim that he "knows this land" for the umpteenth time, you'll be wishing for a roll of duct tape to gag him with.

Now, don't get me wrong, Celtic Kings isn't devoid of decent game-play. Indeed, there are plenty of innovative ideas at work here, like the ability to train your units in the field by letting them spar with each other, but with a little more thought and some more depth, these ideas could've been much better implemented.

For instance, the above option of letting your army spar together was a good one, that could have been great if you could, say, choose what techniques or extra skills your soldiers could learn, but instead it's just a way to quickly level-up your troops in between battles.

So, at the end of this somewhat critical dissection, what're we left with? A 2D sprite-based RTS/RPG based around Vikings, with RTS elements that are somewhat lacking and some good ideas that could've been done so much better. And that basically sums up the whole game: Good, but could've been so much better.

ORIGINALITY 70%
SOUND/GRAPHICS 65%
PLAYABILITY 75%
ADDICTION 75%
ENJOYMENT 70%