THE GUILD 2

GAME DETAILS :-

Developer : 4HEAD Studios

Publisher : JoWood Productions And Deep Silver

Engine : Not Revealed

Genre : Historic Real-Time Strategy

Release Date : October 12 , 2006

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-

Operating System : Windows XP / Windows Vista

CPU : Intel Pentium 4 Processor / AMD Athlon 2800+

Memory (RAM) : 1 GB

Graphics Hardware : DirectX 9.0c Compatible Video Card with Memory 128 MB

[NVIDIA : GeForce FX 5700 Series
ATI : Radeon X850 Series]

Hard Disk Space : 2.5 GB

GAME FEATURES :-

The game consists of four character classes, namely Craftsman, Scholar, Patron and Rogue, each encompassing two or more professions with an average of three, most of which are upgradable and can be taken in different directions. For instance, a foundry can become a weaponsmith or a goldsmith, but not both. Regardless of trade, the player begins with a house, a single member in his or her party (the player may control up to three family members and as many subordinates and henchmen as he/she can afford) and a budget with which to build their first business. As in Europa 1400, the focus here is on setting up a family. You begin with a single peasant and must gradually move him up the ladder in society by starting a business to make lots of money, acquiring a wife, having children to carry on the family name, and even running for public office. A lot of the lines between genres are crossed. Your characters have role-playing game-style ability scores, classes and special abilities. Your character also gains experience points and levels up like in a role-playing game. But you additionally construct and upgrade buildings, gather resources, and produce goods like in a real-time strategy game. And, you'll also oversee businesses like in an economics-simulation game. There is even a bit of action involved where you can hire guards to fend off highwaymen who are intent on robbing your goods-laden carts, or you can become a rogue and rob such shipments yourself. Campaigns all play out in 15th century Europe on maps that represent the English, German, and French countrysides. There are a total of eight maps in the game, although they represent variations on just three general locations. The locations are mainly differentiated by building changes in the starting towns and some adjustments to the opening economic conditions. In Hills of Lyon, for example, you deal with a rich region that forms the hub of five trade routes. But in Alamannia, you have to contend with an economic slump that has been caused by the effects of trade-disrupting bandits. Goals can also be changed in each region by switching among four modes of play. Dynasty is the most enjoyable mode because it's open-ended and the most lifelike. All these options are available for play in multiplayer mode, so in theory, you can have some pretty lively online contests with fellow wannabe burghers. We tried to find an online match for a full week after the game was released in North America, but we never found any games in progress.

Patrons, scholars, and craftsmen make money in similar ways, by crafting goods from raw resources and selling them in town marketplaces. Scholars are the game's professional class, serving as priests, doctors, and the like, but they still manufacture goods like the parchment and holy water that are cranked out in churches. Food-producing patrons work in the fields to cultivate crops and raise beef cattle for sale. Or they run pubs and inns, making and selling booze and food. And craftsmen make their money by crafting metal goods like daggers in foundries or by making clothing in mills. You can automate buildings and carts, but the pathfinding is awful. If you let carts go on their own, they inevitably run into pedestrians and slow to a crawl as well as take circuitous routes to and from markets. So you're stuck with manually moving a lot of workers and carts from your mills, foundries, churches, and assorted other places of business to the marketplace and back. And the personal interactions are a long way from realistic. Courtship is marked by women who giggle like morons and guys who make out like bandits with lines like "Hey, you're really built." And you can score bonus points with strangers by kissing them out of the blue or asking them to take a bath with you. Good luck trying that with the staff at Medieval Times. Bonus points to 4Head for trying to inject some humor into a pretty serious game, but this stuff just isn't going to have people rolling in the aisles, and anyway, it mainly draws attention to how character interaction is pretty shallow. Visuals are a bit behind the times, with characters that are marred by blocky faces and stilted animations. But the clothing styles, interiors and exteriors of buildings and even the haircuts look like something out of a History Channel documentary. The audio doesn't add much to the presentation and is marred by negligible sound effects, forgettable musical, and character dialogue that consists of a few lines of English and a smattering of Latin. Micromanagement and repetition really bog down this original but unfulfilling game about directing the lives of people trying to make it in the Middle Ages. The Guild 2 is pretty much a lesson about the drudgery of toiling in a medieval workshop. After playing this game for an hour or so, you'll thank whatever deity you believe in that you were born a good 600 or so years after your serfs. While you will certainly learn a few things about the Middle Ages in the process of hammering out daggers and directing monks on how to make parchment, the excess of repetitive tasks means that this isn't edutainment at its finest.

GAME REVIEW :-

6.5/10

The Guild 2 Trailer :-