Kingdoms' gameplay is by far the best part of this game, (and should be with every game). The games campaign structure is unique, and very well done. Instead choosing to play through the storyline in any one of the games four races, there is one main campaign were in each mission you play from the perspective of a different race. In your army you can command up to thirty unique creatures per race, so you can see you have a very wide variety of characters. While each side is balanced equally, their type of army will vary greatly. For example, one race may have a VERY strong naval fleet, but a basically nonexistent air force. Another race may have a good air force, but poor sea capabilities. Things like this are what make good real-time strategy games great!

The game also ships with a terrain, and mission editor. This editor, like the one that blizzard shipped with starcraft. This editor should make the "create your own game" enthusiasts happy, and help keep the game alive for quite some time to come.

Kingdoms also offers Internet play. You can either play in Mplayer or Cavedog’s own Boneyard. There are only a few good multiplayer maps and most of the take a long time to load. Cavedog promises to give regular upgrades to the game with more units, this will hopefully keep the game alive. If you really like Blizzard’s real time strategy games, this one won’t be quite as good, but it will still give you enough of what you want.

by Joe Piotrowicz

Visuals - 8.0 Gameplay - 6.5 Overall - 7.2

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