Celtic Kings Rage of War – PC – Preview

Celtic
Kings blends strategy, role-playing and adventure elements into one incredible
experience. Both RTS and role-playing gamers will enjoy the experience of
becoming the young Warrior Larax, who after losing his beloved one, has given
himself to the goddess of war, Kathubodua. There are two modes of gameplay
within Celtic Kings: adventure and strategic mode.

In strategic mode, you play against computer opponents or other players on the
Internet exercising your strategic and tactical skills to achieve objective
victory. You train and command many units, hire and develop heroes, acquire
powerful artifacts and conquer strongholds and villages. Launch large-scale
military campaigns against your foes to bring them to their knees. The
game-play in this mode is similar to the traditional RTS gameplay.

In adventure mode, you control a party of heroes and explore the world as the
struggle between Caesar and the Gaul chieftain evolves. Which side will you
support? Will you betray your allies of yesterday? Will you follow the
mysterious druids as they request your assistance? Command strongholds and
large armies; take risky missions behind the enemy lines. Find powerful
artifacts to support you. Make friends and foes as you try to reveal who you
are and who you want to be.

 

Some
features include. A large world consisting of many maps, in which players can
navigate at will through a combined RTS and RPG experience, Two sides to play
with – Roman and Gaul LAN and Internet games with up to 8 players. Random map
generation In-game scenario/adventure editor. Support for 5000 units on the
map.   Support for 1024×768 or 1280×1024 with thousands of colors. Textured 3D
terrain with lighting that allows landscape views of unique quality. Two zoom
levels for better view and control. Three different seasons selectable for any
map. Integration of character development and major battles is a nice feature
that gives your armies the ability to learn or gain experience form the heroes
that command them.  This gives them an edge when it comes to battle.  I also
liked the ability to train your units to increase their levels.  For example
it’s much easier to win a battle if you have higher level of units then
sending in a bunch of level one novices.  This feature along with attaching
units to the heroes makes for some very interesting strategy building.

 

Now keep in
mind that not all the features were available at time of preview, but this is
an idea what I believe the developers are shooting for in the final release. 
From what I can tell from the many hours of gameplay that I have experienced,
they seem to be right on course.  The graphics were pretty decent and I
enjoyed the music and sound. A manual did not come with the preview copy but
after the in game tutorial, I was commanding my armies in no time.   I hope
the Tutorial is as good if not better in the retail version. My biggest
concern is the ability to have large-scale battles in this case, according to
the web site of up to 5000 units.  Nice goal to shoot for but in any other
multiplayer game that I have played, the hosting computer just can’t ever seem
to keep up.  The true test will be in the final release.

 

If the game
delivers what it promises, this should be a hot summer release for fans of the
genre!