Greetings, Warlord!

SSG (Strategic Studies Group) is renowned for their Warlords games, some of the finest turn-based strategy in existence. Now, they are working on a real-time version of Warlords, called Warlords: Battlecry. We've been taking a look at a preview of it for the past few days, picking and poking to see what's up.

Main Screen

Character Creation

The first thing to strike us is just how faithful the conversion has been. Everything from heroes on down is in the game. Your hero advances in levels, gains equipment and an entourage. As he gets more powerful, spells and special abilities become available. Your enemies will also have units that have special abilities, so counters to those abilities play a key role in the game. Of course, the familiar Warlords mechanics had to be modified in some ways - both to take advantage of and work within the restrictions of real-time strategy.

Gimme the Skinny on the Game

The plot comes down to the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy. Without giving too much away, the prophecy foretells of a great evil coming to ravage the world. Now, it's up to you to stop it ... or take control of it and use it for your own devices. You see, instead of making two separate campaigns - one for good, one for evil; SSG has decided to let the player decide which side he shall choose - a guardian or a conqueror. Approximately halfway through the singleplayer game, you will be presented with a choice, and this your decision will decide how the game plays out from there.

Skirmish mode setup

Getting my initial armies

In addition to the singleplayer campaigns, there is a skirmish mode against the computer. You can play on a pre-selected map, or a random one. When choosing a random map, there are a good number of variables you can select from to give rough settings to the map. The player can decide the number of islands, map size, resources, etc. Or, if you're motivated enough, you can create your own map with the included editor.

Finally, SSG is including one of the best looking and most comprehensive tutorials seen in a game yet. We had no real manual coming with the discs, but within an hour, we were ready to load up and play the game.