"A well-polished and very worthy successor to the original AoW"

As a reviewer, I'm not in the habit of giving games perfect scores, as no game is ever perfect. Some games, however, come extremely close to that goal, and this game happens to be one of them. If you're a fan of fantasy strategy games, or just strategy games in general, then you'll love this game's aggressive AI, beautiful graphics, wide variety of strategies, and all the spells that you could want. And if you're a fan of the original game, you'll notice that every part of the game has been polished very nicely.

In general, you're a wizard who is battling against other wizards for supremacy of a territory, and are helped out by controlling the different races of the land. Cities serve as your main resource and production centers, but you can also gain resources, both for gold and mana, outside of your cities through control of other structures. Cities have the added bonus of being able to build Wizard's Towers, which augment your magical powers and allow you to cast more spells over a much greater territory. And, as long as you control a city with a Wizard's Tower in it, your wizard is immortal. If your wizard should happen to die in battle, he merely gets revived at the nearest city with a Wizard's tower. If you have no Wizard's towers, then it's Game Over. Likewise, your objective should be to deprive your opponent of all of his towers so he cannot be revived. To do this, you must build an army made up of the 12 races and the units specific to each. Some races are better at offense, like the savage Orcs, and others are better at defense, like the Dwarfs. Other races are more specialized, with the underground-inhabiting goblins being a good example, while races like the Archons can put up a good show no matter how they're played. There is a great variety in the tactics that you can use to win, and that's what makes the game so much fun.

When the might of your armies is just not enough, however, then you can help them out with your wizard's formidable magical powers. There are 7 spheres of magic that you can choose to specialize in, but you can only be of one sphere (sorry, no fire/earth combos or anything like that). Like the different races, each sphere is good for different things. Air controls the powers of wind and lightning, Life is used for healing mostly, Death seeks to decay all living things, and so on. Besides the 6 forces of Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Death, and Life, there is also the Cosmos sphere, which takes a bit from each area of magic. There are 3 types of spells that you can cast: Summoning/Global Enchantment spells, Unit-Affecting spells, and Battle spells. You must use these spells wisely, as they will make the difference between your survival and your demise. Also note that you can expect the same from all enemy wizards, as their arsenal is just as formidable as yours is.

The game has a very fantasy look to it, and all of the graphics are much improved over the original AoW. Units now appear very large on the screen to allow for more detain, compared to the tiny units in the original. Spells look great too, and execute pretty quickly so you're not just watching instead of playing (reminds me of Bahamut Zero for FFVII =)). Overland graphics are also very good, and you can zoom in and out as you please. However, the game is still basically 2D, like Civilization III. This doesn't cause any problems of any sort though, unless you absolutely MUST have a 3D strategy game, and the lush graphics more than make up for it.

I don't feel like going through the story of this game, cause, quite frankly, it's silly and unimportant to the overall game. The story missions serve mostly to introduce you to the game's mechanics and various races that you have the opportunity to play. The whole point of the missions is to go through and experience every sphere of magic and become a master wizard. Outside of that though, it's just setting you up to play the many scenarios that people are creating and come with the game. Multiplayer is also included, whether you play by e-mail, over a network, or through GameSpy. And, as always, there's already a host of mappers making fun and enjoyable scenarios that will keep you playing by yourself long after you finish the single player missions.

There are still some minor bugs in the game however, most notably in the AI. The AI is quite vicious, but sometimes it makes some really bone-headed mistakes. These vary from splitting up their forces when it's not really a good idea, to using every single unit in a city to capture something small, like a mine. Also, the difficulty in the single-player missions is very tough from the get-go, and you'll be struggling to hold on to your cities and resources if you've had no experience in this type of game before. Some balance issues need to be worked out as well, but all of these things that I mentioned will probably be fixed by online patches. The current version at the time of this review is 1.1, so I highly suggest you download it if you get this game.

Well, that about wraps up my review. In short, this fantasy turn-based strategy game sports beautiful graphics, a wide variety of races and spells to enjoy, and, most of all, a lot of fun hours ahead of you. So if this type of game appeals to you, go pick it up immediately. And if it doesn't, pick it up anyway, and you might just be pleasantly surprised by what this gem has to offer =).

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/07/02, Updated 09/07/02