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Overall the graphics look good - trees, buildings, and other bits of scenery are crisp and distinct. It is well done as far as it goes, but the mix of RPG and strategy-style play just isn’t suited to engrossing multiplayer gaming. It works well, but is a simple strategy deathmatch that doesn’t offer much in the way of variety. Necromancer includes a multiplayer option, but it’s mostly a letdown. Each character can be individually outfitted using an intuitive "paper doll"-style interface. Necromancer has hundreds of different items to play with, including armor, weapons, clothing, hats, shoes, jewelry, and spell books and scrolls. Enemies often leave piles of equipment and cash behind that you can use or sell in town to improve your weapons and armor. As you play, characters learn and grow, becoming more powerful and more useful. Each character has a unique set of skills and experience that affects how they can handle different challenges. The role-playing side of the game really comes into play with the character stats. One drawback is the inability to set waypoints for your units, but since you usually have less than a dozen characters it’s not too glaring an omission. The AI in the game is also pretty good about intelligently moving your characters along the best path to the destination you’ve requested - it takes factors like terrain and enemy units into account. You also have clear indicators on screen for your characters' health so you can pull them out of the fight when they get close to death. Even the people are unresponsive - they will spout prepared speeches when you come within certain trigger distances, but you don’t have any interaction in the conversations.Ĭombat is well done - you can assign hotkeys to specific characters (or groups of characters), as well as to spells and weapons, giving you good control over your units. There’s not a lot of interaction with the features - character movement is effected by the different terrain you’ll run into but you can’t interact with buildings or read signs that you find. Once you’ve started a mission the game uses a top-down view of the landscape similar to strategy games like Warcraft II and Age of Empires. In general you will have to keep the important characters alive to win, while the mercenaries are more expendable. There are characters who are important to the storyline and also simple mercenaries who will just tag along for a mission or two. The taverns are also where you will find more adventurers to join your quest. To find new missions to undertake you must chat with locals in town taverns - conversations will either reveal more information about a quest you’re already on or open up new options for you to follow. Some can be tackled with a single warrior, while others will require you to build up an effective team to be successful. The missions range from simple tasks like tracking down a villager’s kidnapped son to battling with entire villages of Orcs. With over 40 branching missions, there’s a lot of depth to explore. At any point there are several tasks you can undertake and the game’s plot changes based on which missions you choose to complete and the order in which you tackle them. Unlike many RPGs, the mission structure of Rage of Mages 2 is almost completely non-linear. It’s pulled off with some flair though and ends up not becoming overly hackneyed. The plot is basically a simple rehash of the standard "great evil threatens land, single hero saves everyone" that many fantasy games (and novels) seem to throw up too often.
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The look and feel of the game is almost identical to Rage of Mages (its predecessor), with some tweaking to the graphics, audio, and interface that are definite improvements. Necromancer is an interesting mix of role-playing and real-time strategy and, while it doesn’t shine out as a leader in either genre, it does provide a hybrid that is fun to play.