Gameplay
The
Interface
The interface
is fairly straight forward, with no more than about 3 mouse clicks to accomplish
most tasks. On the left hand side of the screen is where you will be looking
most of the time for your management options (as you can see in the screen
shots). Also anything that you select on the main playing screen will bring
up info that can be viewed in this area, so it's very multipurpose and you
don't have to worry about unit info popping up in separate boxes or something to
that effect.
At the
top of the screen you will see a smaller bar that runs the entire width.
This bar displays some of the other information like the date, the number
of traders that you currently have and the all important pause button is
located here. If you happen to get stuck and are not sure what a certain
option does, just hold the mouse pointer over it for a few seconds and it
will tell you everything you need to know about it. Overall the interface
is well done, like the rest of the game it will take a bit to get used to,
but you have to learn a new interface in almost every game anyway, so its
not really a big deal.
The
Sights and Sounds
Chances
are your not going to buy this game for its graphics. Since, well they aren't
exactly anything special. In this day and age they are about as simple as
they get. Now I'm not trying to use this as a negative because this game
is about diplomacy and strategy and not insane 3D graphics. They are similar
to that found in say Risk or Civilization. They do the job that they are
made for and that's the important thing.
As for
the sound, well lets just say it left something to be desired. The sound
effects are about as basic as they get. A few grunts represents a major
battle and the music that accompanied the game got very annoying after about
5 minutes of the exact same tune. This is again not a huge problem as sound
is not exactly critical to success and if the music really bothers you enough
you can always turn your speakers right off (I did this a few times). I
will point out that the music for the War of Independence Campaign was an
improvement and was good enough to listen too.
These things
all combine to help create the gaming experience and any improvements would
only add to an already very sold title.
