Kingdom Under Fire: the Crusaders hits the strategy genre on the Xbox hard, for anyone who is looking for a console strategy game, this is the game for you literally. The game is not only for strategy aficionados only however as it also caters for people who also like action games. First lets start with the most important part of any game review, the Gameplay portion of game. Unlike other strategy games, the controls are well mapped and easy to handle, you can basically issue commands, orders or waypoints with a few button presses at best, also one of the main features of the game is the gritty close combat battles that you will get to witness personally when playing the game, the commander you play is literally thrown in close combat and you get to control him personally, much like the Dynasty Warrior style of games, the controls however are not as complex as the strategy part of the game, as you are only provided with a few combo attacks and a few special moves to throw at your enemy, however it is still fun and pretty fluid. Of course the learning curve is pretty steep, as you'll have to learn complex medieval strategies to overcome your enemy, its not your run of the mill rock,paper and scissors type of game and your commander will not single handedly save the day, as you'll have to factor in cavalry charges, archer volleys, magical attacks and uses of the several units of infantry in the game, and you can only take a handful of units with you in any battle so you'll have to carefully pick which ones and make them count. In the Single Player portion of the game you are presented with an opening prologue that explains the games back-story, then you are thrown into the game to see the story unfold in front of your eyes, the games story is pretty intriguing and has several plot twists that will keep you coming back for more. The Single player portion also gives you the ability to customise your units with a wide variety of weapons and armours, which impacts your performance during battles, you also get to improve them by spending the experience they gained in battle on several skills that could open up more options and uses of said unit. On the other hand the game comes with a multiplayer option, unfortunately it is very limited, you cannot customise your units as much, and there is not alot of options to improve on gameplay. The games graphics is pretty superb, the units are well detailed and also animate very fluidly, in a very realistic way too, for example when ordering your archers to fire flaming arrows, the commanding officer orders them to line up and one of the archers pulls out a torch to light the other units arrows on fire, or another example the animations of the catapult/ballista crew reloading their siege machines with ammo and firing them, or a phalanx of pikemen preparing to counter a cavalry charge. The magic in the game is no slouch graphically either, massive meteors that rain from the sky that could annihilate units or chain lightning that could eat through armoured people are just a few of a very big selection of magical attacks. All of these graphical details adds up for a very involving and exciting experience. Despite great graphics and good gameplay, the games music is pretty limited, and its not that really bad, despite the games medieval setting, there is some rock or hard metal music in. The bad part of course is the game does not support custom soundtracks and as such you'll either have to listen to the games music or turn it off, the games music itself is not bad however. In my closing comments, I'll just tell you this, buy the game. It has been on store shelves for some time and expect to find a bargain price of 19.99 $ for it, its effectively a steal for its price, don't hesitate get it now!
Other Helpful Reviews for Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders
When you first hear about Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders, you wonder why this game wasn't made for the PC instead of the Xbox. RTS games and consoles usually don't go well together, but Kingdom Under Fire succeeds by ... Read Full Review
Graphics are quite good XBOX quality, especially impressive massive amounts of people that are involved in battles and the game engine never slows down even a bit! But these characters are also all clones and don&#8... Read Full Review
