four hundred babies (id: Lord_Fadawah) |
Posted on 10/03/04 @ 12:00 AM
Britons vs Vikings could never be mistaken as a campaign with a complex theme. British and Viking forces are at war, and you play the Britons led by the author, K Hunter. Your objective is to eliminate the Viking commander.
PLAYABILITY
Britons vs Vikings is a underdeveloped FF with little going in its favour. The author possesses basic trigger skills, and an interesting twist occurs later in the scenario when reinforcements join you. But it lacks any real gameplay substance. You have an army of about 150, facing a Viking force of about twice that size. How to defeat your enemy is up to the player to decide. While there are no bugs, there isn't much effort put into it either. Army #1 vs Army #2 on a grass map. 2
BALANCE
At first, it is a challenging FF that requires many restarts, but once you discover the "tricks" to winning, the scenario becomes easy. You have two options, one is to lure groups Vikings into ambushes with a decoy unit, over and over until your enemy is defeated. The other is to just send your cavalry into the heart of the enemy formation, kill the king, and win. The arrival of the reinforcements is an unbalancing factor, as they almost double the size of your army and make winning much easier. The computer never attacks, so hit and run raids are a viable tactic. 4
CREATIVITY
Not a lot. While the author has an idea of what he's doing, the scenario falls flat on its face in the fact that it doesn't do anything original. Some creative ideas could include defending a city, capturing a supply train, using triggers to make the Viking player attack, or maybe managing a war on multiple fronts. All of those are ES ones, but they add a lot of interest to a scenario. 1
MAP DESIGN
Britons vs Vikings has two terrain types, grass and forest. There is no eye-candy of any kind, and no elevation. Trees are in a ring around the battlefield, with a small "hidden" alcove where the British reinforcements come from. Complete lack of effort in this category. If you don't feel up to the task of designing a map from scratch, you can always generate one. 1
STORY/INSTRUCTIONS
There is no story, no explanation on why the two sides are fighting, and a one-line end message. But the scenario has hints, although not very good ones. One of them is "Attack the vikings who are on their own and will recieve no help", and another is "Trust No one", which doesn't make a lot of sense, since the only other player in the game changes to your control in a few minutes. In the starting instructions, the author explains how to extract the campaign to the correct folder, but this is also fairly redundant since you'd need to have it in the correct folder to be able to run the campaign in the first place. Lastly, spelling and grammar is pretty bad. 2
SUMMARY
This campaign is lacking in almost every category -- an exception being that it presents quite a challenge in the early going. Please continue designing and gain some more experience. The AoKH SD community would be happy to help. |