DISCIPLES 2: DARK PROPHECY


Old-school strategy gaming at its best

By WILLIAM BARKER

Like the new VW Beetle, there's not much middle ground when it comes to turn-based strategy games - you either love them or hate them.

When I first played the original Warlords game on a trusty 20Mhz 386 (it was lightning fast!) with a massive 4Mb of RAM, I was well and truly hooked.

Like a monkey with a banana, I didn't want to let go. The take-it-in-turn attitude allowed you to plan and plot, like a game of chess between two old friends. The random or 'dice-based' combat engine was simplistic but fulfilling. Warlords 2 arrived and - dammit - another 18 months down the drain. Then Heroes of Might and Magic was released, but alas, like an R&B disc jockey with nothing but techno in front of him, they were titles that were never played.

On the bright side, I have been tooling around with Disciples II more recently and to be perfectly honest, I'm hooked. Again.

The story isn't a pre-requisite for having a good time with this title, but still offers above-average emotional involvement. While there are four races, and four stories respectively, each revolves around gaining territory and becoming the most powerful race in the land. There are sub-plots and double-crossings intermingled throughout the games lifespan, but essentially, it's survival of the fittest.

Far from repetitive maps and recycled quests, the game is always enticingly fresh, offering the player juicy new tasks, sometimes grizzly, other times simple. While Disciples 2 (D2) does appear similar to HOMM, it ain't.

Firstly, choose a team - there's the Mountain Folk, the Legion of the Damned, the Empire and the Undead Hordes. Or, if you wanted to be cynical, you could say the token dwarves, demons, humans and skeletons. Each side has individual units and four different heroes to choose from, with the Thief being the fifth hero used by all four races.

You take your hero character, group him with three other lowly grunts, then head out in to the wilderness to capture neutral or enemy garrisoned castles in an attempt to gain territory. The idea behind this is that owning castles allows you to recruit units and heroes and, in addition, gives you access to the resources around them, such as mana, needed for spells, and gold mines, which replenish your coffers.

A few interesting points to note, however: units can only leave castles if under the guidance of a hero and no more than six units are allowed in any one stack. On the other hand, your small troupe of units will gain experience every time they fight and, depending on what you structure you build at your capital, will upgrade into more powerful units.

The game works like so - explore and conquer. Exploring is done via ye olde map screen, complete with fog of war (though there is a spell to banish it). When you decide to lay down the hurt, the game changes to an isometric zoomed-in view. The details is great, yet the cast is made of sprites, which may disappoint some. For me, it's traditional, so it's good. And the spell effects and general attacks look quite groovy for a two-dee game.

The turn-based action is straightforward. Each unit has a bunch of stats, one of them initiative. Those with higher initiatives will get to go first, while the brainless wait.

At the start of most levels, there is always a nice amount of weak neutral enemies close by, which is good, because unlike leaders your grunts vanish at the end of each level. So, with all the easy enemies dotted around, what better way to level up your relatively weak beginner units?

This way, simple grunts become very important and the guy with the most money, hence most armies, won't necessarily conquer. For instance, when you are playing through the latter levels of the game, losing a level 4 knight will be a major and possibly quest-ending mistake.

More interesting however, are the heroes, or leaders. After each level you are allowed to pick one of your heroes to take with you, experience points and all. Five items are also allowed with said hero. Each level-up with your hero grants you a new skill, such as increased movement per turn, more units, better armour, more damage - that sort of thing.

Depending on their attributes, some heroes can also make use of more than one hundred different items, like dwarven blades of increased damage, or orbs of summoning that call forth ghastly spirits from the nether regions of the universe. It's good old fashioned fun.

The key to success in D2 is versatility. The best way to kick ass and chew gum at the same time is to have a couple of hand-to-hand grunts up front, a healer and perhaps an archer or spell caster skulking behind. A king-kong hero also helps.

Disciples 2: Dark Prophecy is a game that looks crappy, sounds pretty crappy and takes ages to get anywhere. In spite of this, it's one of the more engrossing PC games I've had the pleasure to play in quite some time. If you like this kind of game, check out Disciples 2. Like those annoying Scientology freaks, it just won't go away.

ORIGINALITY 70%
SOUND/GRAPHICS 65%
PLAYABILITY 80%
ADDICTION 85%
ENJOYMENT 90%