Cheap Battle Realms (Software) (Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 95) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Battle Realms

Big Potential but
Battle realms has alot going for it, Cutting edge graphics, slick sound, nice story, and innvation.
However, where it fails, is in The most basic thing, combat.
First of all, I wanna say this game isn't bad, it can be enjoyed if you enjoyed games like RA2, or its expansion.
But those games also had bad combats, why?
The entire fights are simply taking groups of units, charging them into the enemy, and hoping for the best.
"Battle Realms does have a few gameplay issues that diminish some of its strategic appeal, as the action can prove to be difficult to manage" Gamespot said.
Well that's just that.
When I play a strategy game, I play it for the battles.
Games like myth, or Starcraft had awesome battles, same for AOE and Empire Earth.
But when the entire battle is just clicking and hoping, you're losing the strategy in RTS.
Also, resources is this game is something very simple, despite what gamespot said.
Water is endless, and rice can be watered forever.

Also, there's a cap on resorces, which is just plain stupid, after you reach the cap, you don't any more then one waterer, and one ricer, so you just spend it all on units, the best one ofcourse.
Unit balance within the clan is lacking, everybody usually just build the highest ranking unit (by training a peasent in all the facilities), and it's hardly expensive either!
now I ain't saying FX aren't important, but they shouldn't, EVER, be important then gameplay.
X-com1, or starcraft, games with nice graphics, but unbelievable strategic apeal.
A few more complaints.
A. For some reason, the entire map is revealed (tough fogged), so instead of going to places you haven't been, you gotta check the entire freakin' map, because you have theoritticly been anywhere.
B. There is no zoom, no spin, nothing of any graphical manuevering you can do, Why? beats me.
C. Peasents are very suicidal, instead of running as they should, they charge head on into the army.
D. Ranged units are nearly useless, as when approached, they must use their bow/crossbow/whatever in order to melee, and let me tell you, they always get approached.
E. You can only build on flat terrain, there is no flatning like normal RTS. So your buildings are spread thin, and defensive towers are limited at that.
F. I remember being said, that yin/yang points are to be given according to good/bad acts, but it's given according to kills in battle.

Biggest Turnoffs: No unit formations; controlling units while on the attack is cumbersome at best; no hard numbers for units; no group command buttons; no random maps and no map editor.Multiplayer really only playable via broadband connections; a few lockup problems with GeForce cards; Alt-Tab crashes the game (A patch was released that fixes this).

To summirize, This game coulda been great, if the combat was just a bit more focused and less chaotic.
I guess I just want to micromanage.
It's usually frowned upon, But how automatic can the game get!
I felt like I was watching my units fights more then I ordered them to.

If you really want an RTS. With a literaly gigantic community I would go for Empire Earth. There are thousands of players online and the game has 300 units in total. 200 mp and 100 specially for single player. It spans 500,000 years too which is 14 ages. You can choose which ages to play or you can play all of them! From Prehistory to the future. ...

---

Better than WC3
Graphics- Battle Realms is one of the most beautiful RTS games on the market. Every unit has several fighting animations, so battles always play out differently and never look the same. Units also have various idle animations, some which have an effect on gameplay. The terrains and maps are very detailed, with fish and frogs in the water, birds in the woods that fly out when disturbed, and insects in the desert.

Sound- The orchestrated soundtrack flows dynamically, changing depending on the current situation. Each Clan has several different songs. Overall the voice overs are fine, except for a few "weird" clips.

Gameply- Battle Realms features totally innovative gameplay. Every unit, even the strongest and most expensive have a counter and can easily be killed if they are not paired with different troops. This prevents newb- tactics such as massing. Most units have two special powers, battle gears, that can drastically affect the outcome of a battle. Since even a level 1 unit can have a very effective gear, there are no useless units in Battle Realms. There is a semi- long branching campaign with a map similar to the one in Emperor. The AI in Battle Realms is also exceptional. Units will automatically attack their last attacker, and often have two different attack types ( samurais have piercing bows and cutting swords). They alternate between weapons to maximize damage to the enemy. The unit AI never has problems with pathfinding.

Conclusion- I have played both Battle Realms and the WC3 beta extensively, and although WC3 is only a beta I can say that BR is far superior. It is a fresh addition to the tired "mass up the strongest and wipe out the enemy" formula of modern RTS games, instead focusing on micromanagement of a small amount of units. BTW, even once you reach 20 units, you will feel like you have a huge army. Thus, most games are decided by early game skirmishing of 6-8 units. The only negative thing I can name is the multiplayer, which uses Gamespy. Gamespy has the laggiest servers ever, so don't expect to find more than 10 games at a time. However, once you get into the game the lag will clear up. I give Battle Realms, Liquid's first game, a 5/5.

---

Fun, but repetitive
This game is pretty fun, but there is little variety. I haven't finished the game, but so far, every level is just building up enough forces and wiping out the enemy. This is like Command and Conquer, only the natural resources are unlimited (rice keeps growing, water keeps flowing) and the number of units you can have is limited. In each level, you can only have a certain number of men, around 20 or 30 so far. So it's difficult to have enough men defending the village and still have a large enough attack force. That may increase the challenge, but it is frustrating. It is more involved, too. You have to activate abilities for them to do anything, so you have to watch the fight and use the abilities at the appropriate time. In C&C, it was more getting together a large force and just leaving them to it, or going by stealth and capturing buildings in the enemy base. A problem is that units sometimes don't react very quickly. Some abilities cause this, but they also do it without being afflicted by anything. Also, it allows you to choose to save peasants from tyranny or force them to submit to your will at the beginning. But that seemed to be the only time, which disappointed me. Battle realms is fun, but only some of the time. It doesn't require much attention and can get old quickly. It's cheap, so give it a try.