On one map, you move through a series of set-piece battles, slowly driving the Teuton invaders from your land. As Larax's journey progresses, you move across huge maps and never know what's coming next. The best part about the adventure mode is how open-ended it can be. Play as Imperial Rome in single-player and multiplayer. Gold is collected and transported in much the same way. Food must be sent from villages to military outposts, and peasants must be called in whenever you want to raise troops for an army. Barreling forward en masse is not an option, even in the early stages of the campaign. You occasionally join forces with other heroes, for example, and must perform flanking and feinting maneuvers in order to break through enemy defenses. The game does have tactical elements, though they aren't very deep. You can arrange your troops into formations, split them off to build the catapults required for smashing enemy fortifications, and so forth. Instead of fighting a few enemies and getting advice from tribal leaders, you're besieging fortresses and sacking villages. Not long after you begin to collect troops, the quests become more appropriate to a real-time strategy game. These horsemen, axemen, swordsmen, and archers can be formed into a small army under Larax's command that benefits from his skills as a hero. Although Larax starts off as a lone hero, he soon encounters his fellow tribesmen. But on others he leads massive armies into battle.īut things soon begin to shift. Larax himself is modeled much like a typical role-playing character, in that he collects experience points and gains levels. It begins much like a traditional isometric RPG, with Larax carrying out solo quests that take him closer to his goal of exacting revenge on the Teutons. You play as Larax, a Gallic tribesman who pledges his life to the war goddess Kathobodua after Teuton raiders destroy his village and kill his wife. The separate elements are blended together so seamlessly that it's difficult to understand why successfully implementing this concept has eluded developers in the past.Īdventure mode, the more role-playing-focused mode, is a solo, story-driven saga set during the Roman conquest of Gaul. But each prominently features aspects of its counterpart so that both transcend the limitations of their particular genres.
Dual modes of play are featured-one emphasizing a hack-and-slash role-playing style, the other focusing on the base-building and resource management common to real-time strategy.
The game has all the qualifications in both categories. You might even say that Celtic Kings is the first true RPG-RTS hybrid. Neither role-playing nor real-time strategy fans will feel shortchanged here, which is remarkable when you consider how hybrids of this sort typically adopt a jack-of-all-games approach that leaves them master of none.
Bulgarian developer Haemimont Games-best known for its work on Tzar: The Burden of the Crown two years ago-has crafted a title that gives players some of the best elements of both worlds.
CELTIC KINGS RAGE OF WAR TIPS PC
Diablo meets Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns in Celtic Kings: Rage of War, one of the more entertaining cross-genre games to hit the PC in some time.
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