Whirlin
10-13-2013, 09:41 AM
So I found this one via a steam deal, for relatively cheap price... I don't think more than $10 or so. Or maybe I found a coupon in one of those Steam card booster packs. Regardless, I somehow found this game for relatively cheap.
Now, I'm going to take an interesting twist, and actually not talk about the game yet, but talk about it's spiritual prequel, Masters of Magic, produced by Microprose, release in 1994... Here's it's amazing cover art:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c3/Master_of_Magic_boxcover.jpg/256px-Master_of_Magic_boxcover.jpg
Masters of Magic was ahead of it's time. While the original Civilization had been released in 1991, Masters of Magic took the genre and spun it on it's head by integrating the basic concepts of Civilization, while adding hero-units, better micro-management of battles, and ohh yeah, your leader is a wizard. Losing a battle? Summon a lightning bolt. Some creatures attacking your unprotected city? Summon some Phantom Warriors to defend it. The game interlocked all of those, albeit a bit unbalanced with the hero units, creation of artifacts, and just making an invulnerable hero.
While the game definitely had it's flaws (required a boot disk), and was even a considerable memory hog back in those days, it had a massive cult following. A typical 'game' would last about 10-20 hours to complete, with high replayability. There were 5 schools of magics that you could pick from, with 12 'books' to allocate between the schools when you create your character. Each book unlocking new tiers, but you could also mix and match as necessary. Furthermore, perks (such as artificiator, which reduced create artifact spell costs by 50%), were purchasable during creation at the cost of 3 books. There were really a lot of options that gave tons of replay ability.
There have been several attempts to do reboots of the Masters of Magic franchise, but Microprose as a company was bought out, then bought out, then bought out, then sold, so it's licensing is a legal nightmare. This is actually the same company that produced the original XCom Series that was only revived last year, so somehow the owning company found that it was on a gold mine.
Currently, there is an attempt to recreate Masters of Magic using some of the original staff, which is being kickstarted: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wastelands/worlds-of-magic
However, Warlock: Master of the Arcane is a damn good attempt at a successor. It has all the same aspects as the original game, but updated to a hex-map, and appears to be running off of the Civ engine. While there are a little performance issues with Windows 8 x64, that's likely due to the OS more than the game itself. And while random crashes exist, the auto-save is pretty much every turn, so you don't end up losing much when you need to go back to it.
Heros have been better balanced, and are no longer completely invulnerable (which is both a good and bad thing, of course!). Although, the lack of a raise dead spell makes it pretty painful if you lose one.
It's very addicting, which I think would be in line with other Civ games, but it just has more to offer than the Civ titles in my opinion.
A great deal at like, $5 or whatever I paid for it. Definitely worth picking up if you see it on Steam Sale. Warlock 2 is in the works, so I definitely anticipate the first one going on sale very often until it's released, or upon it's release.
Now, I'm going to take an interesting twist, and actually not talk about the game yet, but talk about it's spiritual prequel, Masters of Magic, produced by Microprose, release in 1994... Here's it's amazing cover art:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/c3/Master_of_Magic_boxcover.jpg/256px-Master_of_Magic_boxcover.jpg
Masters of Magic was ahead of it's time. While the original Civilization had been released in 1991, Masters of Magic took the genre and spun it on it's head by integrating the basic concepts of Civilization, while adding hero-units, better micro-management of battles, and ohh yeah, your leader is a wizard. Losing a battle? Summon a lightning bolt. Some creatures attacking your unprotected city? Summon some Phantom Warriors to defend it. The game interlocked all of those, albeit a bit unbalanced with the hero units, creation of artifacts, and just making an invulnerable hero.
While the game definitely had it's flaws (required a boot disk), and was even a considerable memory hog back in those days, it had a massive cult following. A typical 'game' would last about 10-20 hours to complete, with high replayability. There were 5 schools of magics that you could pick from, with 12 'books' to allocate between the schools when you create your character. Each book unlocking new tiers, but you could also mix and match as necessary. Furthermore, perks (such as artificiator, which reduced create artifact spell costs by 50%), were purchasable during creation at the cost of 3 books. There were really a lot of options that gave tons of replay ability.
There have been several attempts to do reboots of the Masters of Magic franchise, but Microprose as a company was bought out, then bought out, then bought out, then sold, so it's licensing is a legal nightmare. This is actually the same company that produced the original XCom Series that was only revived last year, so somehow the owning company found that it was on a gold mine.
Currently, there is an attempt to recreate Masters of Magic using some of the original staff, which is being kickstarted: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wastelands/worlds-of-magic
However, Warlock: Master of the Arcane is a damn good attempt at a successor. It has all the same aspects as the original game, but updated to a hex-map, and appears to be running off of the Civ engine. While there are a little performance issues with Windows 8 x64, that's likely due to the OS more than the game itself. And while random crashes exist, the auto-save is pretty much every turn, so you don't end up losing much when you need to go back to it.
Heros have been better balanced, and are no longer completely invulnerable (which is both a good and bad thing, of course!). Although, the lack of a raise dead spell makes it pretty painful if you lose one.
It's very addicting, which I think would be in line with other Civ games, but it just has more to offer than the Civ titles in my opinion.
A great deal at like, $5 or whatever I paid for it. Definitely worth picking up if you see it on Steam Sale. Warlock 2 is in the works, so I definitely anticipate the first one going on sale very often until it's released, or upon it's release.