Seven Kingdoms: Conquest review

You may feel like you’ve played Seven Kingdoms: Conquest before - except that you actually enjoyed it the first time. This relaunch of the Seven Kingdoms series tramples on the good name of the original franchise and poorly imitates games that came out 10 years ago. If you took the Civilization series, the Age of Empires games, and WarCraft III, rolled them into a ball and then dipped it in bile, you’d get this terrible, terrible game.

Conquest’s eight measly single-player missions are virtually plot-free, which, given the ludicrous combination of demons and historical civilizations, mandates some form of explanation. The human and demon sides play differently, but their sub-armies play exactly the same. (Each of the five ages of humanity has three armies, while the demon side is composed of seven.) Unit variety is purely superficial: Human medics can be called priests in one army and philosophers in another, but they cost the same, act the same, and perform the same functions.

The game’s strongest feature is its scale - you can have more than 200 units fighting on a map, making for some truly epic battles. But since your “special” units are practically useless (save for healers), your strategies are pretty much limited to rush attacks, turning gameplay into a simple numbers game. If you fall behind on churning out units, no amount of superior tactical skill will save you. Once you figure out the game’s ridiculously easy AI, though, victory is almost assured.

Dated graphics, poor AI, buggy gameplay, cumbersome controls, and uninspired design choices make playing Conquest an exasperating experience. So, why bother?

PC Gamer scores games on a percentage scale, which is rounded to the closest whole number to determine the GamesRadar score.

PCG Final Verdict: 50% (Merely okay)

May 9, 2008