This game takes a long time to learn, but can be great fun if you can be bothered with the first hour or so...

User Rating: 8 | Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne PC
By dartharel | Review Date:
Age of wonders 2 picks up from where the first game left off, where the valley of wonders has been saved from all out chaos and has been returned to its rightful owners. it seems that some power-hungry wizards who used to be united have gone awol and the world is again under threat, as the magical balance from the first game has been broken. you must unite or destroy these wizards to save the valley of wonders from them. this premise seems sound, and it is for the most part - some of the twists from the storyline are compelling and overcoming the various challenges is rewarding - however, i played the first game and it seems to me that there are quite a few continuity errors that stumped me for a while. to name a couple of these problems:

In the first game, Yaka is a God. now he is just a man and this isnt fully explained.

The Azracs and Lizardmen have been replaced, seemingly wiped out by something but it never describes how properly. also the new races are intorduced without any adequate explanation of their motives or history.

Anyway, as i said, if you can avoid being caught up in these aspects then the game is highly rewarding. Although there is little in the way of voice acting, the characters seem to have personalities from the text messages they send you in the middle of a level.

The only other thing to note about the story is that there is no multiple endings, unlike AoW 1

The gameplay is fun and well balanced - it takes longer to produce a factions best unit thus giving weaker units a purpose. before in the first game i used to just go gun-ho with red dragons or nature elementals etc rather than using a proper army. It makes the game deeper. this is furthered by the way the base system works. obviously all of these new features take a long time to learn, especially for someone set in the ways of the first game. its drastically different, and to learn the features in competitive games is drastrically hard. (The tutorial is not much help either). if you can learn it then you are bound to find an affinity for the outcome of your troubles... well, you would be able to if not for the spells...

Picture this - your playing a fun game against the AI. you have been playing for about an hour when suddenly they start using global spells that weaker units simply cant do anything against. Everything that the game should be in late game is squashed under the weight of some idiot using 'fire domain' and the gameplay becomes restricting and, well, boring. Who on earth came up with these over powered spells? the mind boggles.

As a Turn based strategy, this game is decent, just so long as you can wipe out your enemies before they can use OP spells. in the end though, the first one must be said to be better because of its moderate use of magic...

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