The sequel to the best castle sim ever created makes us all wonder: why did the guys at Firefly had to publish it early?
Story: The story in Stronghold franchise was never a shining example of scriptwriting. Characters, situations and scenery are all there just so you could get your wheels of war going to smash someones castle or defend yours, and that's practically it. No deep conversations, plot-twists are predictable, characters are to cliché etc. But, as I said, the story in this universe was never of any importance, unless it relied on some historic accuracy. Nevertheless I'll give it 7, only because I finished the campaign just because of it (no matter how bad it was), yet got totally disappointed at the end cutscenes.
Gameplay: When the game was released it was utter catastrophe: pathfinding of the units was HORRIBLE (it still looks kinda chaotic, but only in free-formation), there were alot of bugs and graphical glitches that drived the fans of the series insane and when you combine it with the controversial gong-crime-rats combo (which I found great, because people really DID take a c**p on the "streets" at those times, and thieves and rats were more common than today... okay, maybe thieves are more common TODAY than in those times, but still XD) it makes you take out your dvd, bring it to your retail store, demand refund and, if they deny your request, demonstratively set the game on fire in front of the store manager. Yeah it sucked that much, but after the recent patches it was FAR more enjoyable and stable. Yet I'll have to give this segment a 1, sorry guys at Firefly but you flawed this one seriously...
Graphics: Well, what can I say about the graphics, hmmm... they were great for that time only thing is... YOUR COMPUTER WOULD LITERALLY DIE OUT once you start the game, loading times were huge, and if you lowered your graphics to uber-low, you would get crappy graphics (think of black models without texture). Grade: 5 (only because you can easily run the game fine nowadays on best graphics, but they look pretty old today.)
Music and sound: While the awesome music from Robert Euvino was returned from SH1, the fx sounds were disappointing, and voice-over total letdown. I mean come on, the units (especially pikemen) sounded totally retarded, I personally got the feeling even armed peasants were more educated than these guys. One thing that especially annoyed me was when I clicked many times somewhere selecting my lord, and the sound of his armor only stack one upon the other. I'll give this one 5 (10 to the music and one big 0 to the sound effects and voice acting.)
Summary: As much as I love Stronghold series, I must say that this game was a huge letdown for me. When it was about to come out me and my friends were totally hyped, thinking about the new mechanics, new 3d graphics which looked excellent back in those years, and were playing Crusader more than ever awaiting the sequel. You could just imagine the amount of disappointment and nerd-rage I had back then. And now with the Stronghold 3 announced I only wish for it to improve upon the mistakes of its predecessor, and become a game true to the original one and revolutionary in every other part; a game which I will with great pride call "The best Stronghold game" and enjoy in it for many years to come, so watch out FF and don't make the same mistake again ;)
Cheers 'till the next review!