King's Bounty: The Legend Comments by Dan Whitehead

"...yes, you really will switch if off as soon as you see what's over the next hill."

Well that couldn't have described Fable 2...There aren't that many 'next hills' to see over. Free-roaming exploration isn't it's strong point.

Anyway, on to Kings Bounty. Sounds awesome!

Well that was a surprise. To the purchase-mobile!

The thing about Spirits of Rage is true. They show you an icon for something, and you're left wondering when the hell are you going to do something with it. The map is also slightly confusing at first, but they at least made it detailed, so you can move from landmark to landmark. It could have been more informative, though.

I didn't know the English translation had such fun mistakes. In case anyone is interested, I recommend the Polish version as it is an excellent translation. It's almost as fun to read as it is to play!

I can see where the camera part comes from. They could have given the player more freedom with it, but it is nothing worth fretting about. It is only slightly confusing during the first few seconds on the map.

Finally, the review basically nails every single aspect of the game. Don't buy it if you have anything absolutely important to do beforehand.

"To the purchase-mobile!"

:D

"The notion of plain English also brings us to hilariously wonky translation. Often this simply adds to the oddball charm, like when your mentor declares "You were almost like a son to me - young, hot and certainly talented" or, should you opt to follow the magical path, the way your character enters one early battle with a cry of "Mage came!" Other times, however, the mangled syntax renders important information unclear, a problem made more prominent by the habit of cramming reams of dialogue text into a tiny window."

Glol at this passage.

Nice review Dan, I've never even heard of this game until now, but it sounds like great fun.

I may have missed it, but does this have any multiplayer?

It really is rather excellent.

My only criticism would be that you feel a little detached from your character, as he doesn't appear on the battlefield, and the skills/spells you learn are hence a little abstract. I would have preferred to see my avatar, with collected loot and all, on the battlefield, especially as it's much more an RPG than the HoM&M series.

this game is great, I enjoyed it greatly.

Oh no! That's evil, showing me a sequel to one of the most addictive games I've ever played. Goodbye life, it was nice knowing you.

I'm really glad this is good. I was hoping it would be, but wasn't optimistic. It's going to be the next game I play :).

KB is addictive as hell.
yes, it's very enjoyable even in small chunks, but controlling yourself and putting it down before you fall asleep on the keyboard will be difficult. so beware.

Erm - not released until next February? I'm hoping there's another way to get hold of it earlier - from STEAM or some other service?

Yeah, it's already available to buy online - there's a link from the official site: http://www.kings-bounty.com/eng/

February is the release date for the boxed product.

Look here, Phattso.

It's been out on Gamersgate for a few months, but only appeared in the shops here in Germany very recently.

I remember playing the original King's Bounty in glorious EGA graphics. It was awesome, although sliiiightly unbalanced. Peasants vs. Vampires was a really, really bad idea...

I got this some weeks ago, played it for hours and hours and enjoyed exploring the land with my hero but then suddenly stopped as I reached the second 'continent' as I had realized that the game would play like this to the end and I had seen all there was and there would be nothing but grinding left for me to do. a lot of grinding.

Good game mechanics and a quite beautiful game I thought but when the monotony set in there was nothing to save it... or me?

8/10

Cheers for the purchase links, folks - much appreciated. That said, they're after between £32 and £40 for the digital download with the boxed product available to pre-order at £25.

/looks at stack of unplayed games

Yeah - they just did themselves out of an early sale. I can wait. :)

I played the demo a lot and thought it was Heroes of Might and Magic with a lot of the strategy stripped away, so not for me. I missed the simple things that added so much tactics to HOMM, such as day/week cycles and showing how many monsters are in a stack. Simple, but important.

Maybe the full game is different, but for me HOMM5 pisses all over this.

Uh jaxon, you can see how many monsters are in a stack in this. It's a hero skill.

But is it as good as HOMM 2 which, in my eyes anyway, is the greatest game of all time?.....

"You were almost like a son to me - young, hot and certainly talented"

Excellent.

Phattso where can I order thi for £25? I can wait too :p

I have it on my Mega Drive, ridiculously long password system for saving the game meant I never was able to finish it properly - stupidly hard final couple of bosses.

thought it was Heroes of Might and Magic with a lot of the strategy stripped away

The turn-based battles certainly aren't any less deep, but it's more an RPG where HoMM is a strategy game, that much is true. Though "stripped away" sounds a bit too much like it was simplified - it just has a different focus.

I only checked play.com who have it for £25 but there are bound to be others.

What's worse is that I'm a weak-willed little toad and actually went to purchase it from UncleLou's Gamer's Gate link. Were it not for the fact that it wanted my credit card details via an unsecure session I'd be playing it now. :-/

Maybe I just approached it in the wrong frame of mind then. Might give it another chance, based on the review score and opinions here.

Is there any word on how the boxed retail version might differ? Is there any point in waiting or should I just download it now?

Well the point in waiting around is that you save £15, pre-oredered from play :)

WHAT THE HELL?! I absolutely loved King's bounty on my Commodore 64! Where did this come from??

I'm really pleased they've done the original justice, I'll deffo be getting this!

Beware, when you first visit the 2nd continent of islands, the difficulty ramps up pretty steeply. Let alone once you go through teh mines! (That's where i am at the moment)

Great game though, i'll get back to it when I've defeated 'The Darkness' and 'Fallout 3'

MAGE CAME

It was released month ago in US so you can use any of your favourite import shops to get this :)

I'm sure the lead artist on this game has never played any of the Warcraft games. Oh no. Nosireebob. Indeed, it has its own unique look as distinct as the different shades of green on an orc's face.

It's titles like this are the reason I keep a gaming PC around.

*Pre-ordered*

"MAGE CAME"

Did he...

/put on his robe and wizard hat?

Jesus, I clicked on to the website and thought it had directed me to the WoW website! Could this run on a pretty shitty laptop? The graphics look nice but pretty undemanding!?

edit... checking the system reqs looks like it demands a fairly meaty computer!

""You were almost like a son to me - young, hot and certainly talented"

Excellent."

I was gonna say "disturbing" :).

Gah, stop this onslaught of great games already! I hardly get out of the house anymore as is, this certainly won't help >:(

Or at least make them 9-10/10 games a LOT shorter and with no replayability whatsoever, damned.

Top game this. Lots of bears in it too. There aren't enough bears in games generally. If I could remember where the polar bear shop was I'd have 3 fifths of my army as different flavoured bears by now.

I like that pretty much every article on KB mentions just how batshit crazy it is.

If anyone is wavering on this, maybe this will help: Near the start you'll get the opportunity to marry a zombie.

Wow this sounds unexpectedly awesome. As soon as L4D is out of my system, I'm there!

Where the hell did this game come from???

A n equally justified question would be: how the hell did you all manage to miss this game? ;-)

It's been covered quite extensively by sites which are a little more PC-centric.

F*** me i am buying this right now from your Gamer's Gate link.

i've been playing this for a few months now. it is an excellent game in every way. The depth in the battles is endlessly fun if you like having to think a bit before the carnage.

I've been playing this for several months, now, after buying it through Atari's US site (they were happy to sell it to me despite the Atari UK release being months off). Bloody great game, but be warned that it can crash pretty regularly; for me it used to crash regularly going into battles, after patching it now crashes when leaving battles or moving between areas, just not as frequently. Even so, there have been nights where I've suffered 4-5 fullblown BSOD's and yet I've still reloaded it each time once my PC's back up and running!

Having played the game from beginning to start couple of times, I have to say that it has retained all the charm that made original kings bounty such a fun game, while adding tons more fun to the mix. And the writing is top notch (I'm talking about that wonky english version which I played). There might be some odd moments but it never leaves you scratching your head.

On related note: spirits of rage. Those are quite useful if used correctly, and as a tip to others: Once you obtain the chest, you can talk to them (and learn some interesting things from them). To do so, just click on the portrait of the spirit you want to talk to. (that's also the way of how you can recruit them to help you during fights).

But if you want to know what sold the game for me, it's this: I chose paladin hero. Right at the tutorial, when they sent me to first dungeon area I saw some urn by the wall. Since I could interact with it, I did. My character found some gold, but it's the text that appeared when I opened the urn (which was, by the way, container for ashes of some dearly beloved). The text went like this:
You sure appreciate the habit of burying the dead with huge part of their earthly posessions. Paladin. Saying something like that when he robs the urns. It was very, very amusing beginning of a great game :)

Uh oh, this has suddenly been ramped up to insta-purchase level.

*wallet cries

From some of the key members of the team of Space Rangers 2, 9/10 awesome PC Game fans.

Actually, while I'm here, Alec Meer writes about some of the inspired lunacy in King's Bounty.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/10/...

POOR ZOMBIE WIFE.

KG

They've patched the "young, hot and certainly talented"!! How disappointing :-(

This is a truly excellent game. Agree completely with the minimap gripes (it's rubbish) and it would be nice if the game gave you some kind of warning when you're about to be completely overpowered by rebellious spirits inside your helmet - killing you and everyone who follows you...actually, nah, that always makes me laugh.

It really is horribly addictive though...