Kings Bounty

[Standup]

Just got this as I had some vouchers for Game and its been a nice surprise. Never played the original so can't say how much it owes to it but it is essentially a variant of HOMM. Real time movement on the adventure map and hex, turn based combat when you meet an enemy.

Much less strategic than HOMM - no income (other than looted treasure), no town building and no upgrades as such. Its a bit more RPG in that you wander the map doing quests (mainly fed ex type) collecting gold and experience. You can then buy troops, spells and magic items at the various castles as the plot pushes you forward. The combat is almost identical to HOMM but with the creatures having slightly different skills or special attacks.

Really enjoying it at the moment. Much more so than HOMM V. The translations are a bit ropey and the humour is er...mixed. Main downside is that there doesn't appear to be a 'walkover' function for combat and considering the amount of combat there is some battles are just tedious. You know you'll win without loss but you still have to go to the tactical screen and play it through. The quest log isn't especially helpful either.

[El_Cid]

http://www.kings-bounty.com/eng/description.php

This game? It's weird i saw this and many others like it in the PC games section and thought "whats that then?, why haven't i heard much about these games and here areshelves full of new retail PC games - maybe they are cr*p so no one advertises about them?" etc.

So is it decent would you say or one of those PC games no one reviews? usualy for good reason.

I did pick up 2 the other day that fall into that catagory: "Metal Heart"(Akella)[like planescapre+old fallout games in terms of presentation and feel - rpg] and "Project: Xenoclone" - no idea what it's about, graphics look terrible, but it was only £2 in a sale so what the heck?

[Standup]

That's the one.

I've just played it solid for 3 days so I'd say its decent. If you enjoyed HOMM or Ages of Wonders even then it's more in the same vein. My enthusiasm is starting to wane a bit but after a week of work I'll probably be in the mood to pick it up again. No crashes so far either.

A bit too much go there collect this,take it there and then return. There's no strategic travel and the pathfinding is pretty poor so you can't fire and forget. There's also a fair bit of getting off and on boats to get to islands. And it really needs an auto combat. I'm playing on Easy at the moment while I get the hang of the game and it is a bit too easy so might start again and also try a different class to see how differently they play.

[Felch]

I'm playing it on normal and it's pretty tricky. A lot of the game's strategy at this point involves finding fights that you can win without losing many of your more valuable soldiers. It would be nice to have an auto-resolve feature for the combat. You can let the AI take over, but it's pretty retarded, and doesn't speed things up either.

[Sir Og]

Is this like Kings Bounty 2?
The original Kings Bounty was a great game. I have always wondered why they abandoned some of the nice features in later HOMM titles.
If I remember correctly there were multiple maps in the original game and you could travel from one map to the other through teleports.
I have to check this new title out.

[Standup]

Just finished the peace treaty with the Dwarves and now heading off to meet the Elves. Fights have got a bit tougher but still not in danger of losing any. If I wasn't 20-30 hours in I should start again. And currently have 2.2million gold which seems a lot when replacing my troops costs around 10K.

There are multiple maps and I'd expect on the higher levels the types of troops become more important i.e. priests against undead. At the moment my main attack force is ancient bears backed up by archers.

[El_Cid]

So what would be your rating for it, if you were to give it a magazine/webzine typre rating? I'm still kinda cautious about this game, as i'm not a huge fan of high fantasy(bar Lord of the Rings books), but the Fall From Heaven 2 mod for CivIV has kinda started to bring me around a bit and this game does sound interesting from what you've talked about it so far.

So if you had to give it an arbitary 'out of 10' or 'out of 100' score where would you put it?

[Standup]

Tricky. I think its one of those if you like this style....

If you like TBS especially HOMM then 7 out of 10. Good fun but ultimately repetitive with limited replay value. An auto resolve for combat might move it to 8 out of 10.

If you're a FPS/RTS person who doesn't like TBS or fantasy then 4 out of 10. It's not going to convert you.

[DrSpike]

7 out of 10 if you are a fan? Damning with faint praise there!

[El_Cid]

I'll tell you my main concern, it's the graphics(lol for a change!). They kind of look like they belong in a proper 3D game, and even though they actualy get slated, or critized in some of the reviews(too few polygons etc), i think they are 'too good' for a serious strat game

when i see good/excellent 3D graphics i know something has gone at their expense, especialy if your talking about a not mainstream big AAA title. The battles are turnbased but i find the look of the game would probably better fit an rts game(bright colours, big 3D models etc), so it is perplexing me a little.

I like HoMM to a point(version 3 and no further), but i found it quite a 'strict' game to play - fixed tactical maps that you have to 'know' to complete and progress(in the tricky ones).

AoM i liked more, it is a little more forgiving in general(to my mind), and very well implimented.

But i'm hovering around this title - i love tbs strategy games(the best kind of game for me), but i dont like big 3D engines on that type of game(CivIV is the only exception to that rule so far imho).

I think i will pick it up and give it a go - it has kept much of the tradition of a good strat game i like(and those are getting rarer), and i dont mind fantasy. I think it was on a good deal in Game.

ah yeah here it is:

http://www.game.co.uk/search.aspx?platform=*&s=kings+bounty&sort=itemOrderasc

regular or 'collectors edition'?

[Standup]

Regular - can't quite remember what was in the collectors but it wasn't enough to tempt me and I'm a bit of a sucker for free figurines etc.

I quite like the graphics and there's lots of neat touches like rabbits running around. They aren't huge but they feel like the developers made an effort. One problem I do have is I can't quite get 'high enough' to get a good view. You can actually play it in a FPS viewpoint but seems pointless.

I agree about the graphics especially with HOMM 5 - didn't add anything and actually subtracted from gameplay. In Kings Bounty less so and I think as there is less going on game wise than in HOMM or Age of Wonders. I quite like the big, bright colours. Suits the storyline and cheesy humour.

7 out of 10 if you are a fan? Damning with faint praise there!

I think I'm one of people who just never like to give 10/10 so 9/10 is exceptional. Bit like my Amazon ratings - hardly anything gets 5 starts. But as I said above reply value is limited because of the linear plot but also limited options around strategy whereas I'm still playing Homm3 or Age of Wonders - Shadow Magic (probably a 8.5 out of 10 )

[El_Cid]

I've just been reading a couple of reports over at Qt3 about this game making peoples laptops/PC's run very hot/heavy. So much so in the case of the laptops that people have stopped playing due to the high heat levels!!

So i'm going to put this on hold until that gets resolved or explained more.

[DrSpike]

You shouldn't believe everything you read on teh internet.

[El_Cid]

of course, but this thread at Qt3 was more from a concerned player asking if anyone else had issues like it, and it turns out those that had replied pretty much all had noticed the effect. It may be a patch thing that is needed, still if it does stress the PC more than normal(see the Qt3 thread for more details) then i'll err on the side of caution for now. I wonder if Standup noticed this?

[Standup]

Can'y say I have and I had been quite concerened as I'd just installed a fanless 9600GT so I have been monitoring the temperature as I was worried about ventilation generally. The recommended spec is pretty high for a TBS so maybe it's just it pushes machines far more than the normal fare at Qt3?