Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown

"I am NOT a merry man."

Introduction: The age old story of the notorious thief, the thorn in the side of the Sheriff of Nottingham the one and only Robin Hood prince of thieves. From the hit-and-miss minds of Cinemaware, famous for the Commodore 64 title ''Defender of the Crown''. Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown is a strategy game with a touch of first-person-shooter and another touch of one on one style fighting game. However all those elements have been combined to make what I feel is the worst possible game that it could be.

Gameplay:As stated before, it's a simple strategy game possibly to simple for the new generation of systems. There are a few different types of combat in this game, the most prevalent is the strategy combat, armies are selected in number and sent at each other in the form of static ''playing pieces'' that often resemble chess pieces. When an army piece is defeated they are flung from the board in a rather humorous manner. Another form of combat is the 'siege' combat, you control a catapult and fire rocks at the oppositions castle hoping to hit a rampart full of soldiers, until the castle is reduced to rubble. Other forms of combat are an integral part of gaining gold, raiding Carriages and Castles for their riches. During a Carriage raid you take your trusty long bow and all the arrows in England and shoot those defenseless soldiers and pesky archers from a single perch as they pass by on horseback. When the Carriage comes about you have to shoot the driver and all the occupants to get a good gold raid, although shooting enough soldiers/archers is a good supplement. As you are perched in the trees you can only sustain 3 arrow hits from the passing archers until your are mortally wounded and set back to your camp leaking. Castle raiding is the alternative, you single handedly rush a castle full of soldiers or perhaps knights and fight your way to the treasury which is loaded with gold of course. With a simple high/low/lunge stabs and single block and dodge you must trounce the guards, which leaves a bit to be desired when i think of the flashing blades of swordplay. At the end of each round your opponent will either move into new land, attack you or make an attempt at stealing ALL your gold, this makes all the raiding you've done useless if successful. The final combat type is the joust, Robin mounts his horse and tries to knock his opponents head off with a big stick, the controls of these events are oversimplified thus making this part of the game pretty easy after a few attempts. As a whole the game is very lacking and extremely frustrating at stages to the point where you don't necessarily want to reload and make another attempt at correcting your play.

Story The game follows the timeless story of Robin Hood to a point... The mean nasty Prince John has taken control of the throne, during King Richards captivity during his crusades. You Robin Hood takes your merry band of hoodlums out for a romp to win back England after being nagged to death by Maid Marian throughout the entire game. The game ends when you either raise the money for King Richard's release through Friar Tuck or dominate England.

Flash Value The graphics are pretty the sounds are cool. I was impressed with the sounds of the arrows zipping by and strangely intrigued by the talking busts of the strategy screen. The map itself is very clean and any buildings are well modeled and textured. This is as good as it gets in this game folks.

Re-playability This game boasts multiple endings which may keep people who enjoy this game interested for another round or two. However for those who don't one ending is enough and probably won't pick the game up ever again, like myself for instance. The gameplay itself doesn't promote much in variety of tactics and tends to get tired in a hurry.

Final Recommendation Overall the game looks nice, but with horrendous gameplay flaws, shallow and over-used storyline filled with interruptions that take away from the total gameplay I would stay far far away from this title. If you are a die hard fan of Robin Hood, rent before you buy.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 03/21/04