Favorite Games from the Past Year: Majesty 2

Yes I know this game is a year old, but I just started blogging. When I left Zam and suddenly didn't have to play MMOs for professional reasons, I felt a sudden urge to set aside WOW and EQ2 for a while and try some other games. One of the first ones I picked up was Majesty 2. This was not a highly hyped game and many of you may not have heard of it, but if you enjoy Real Time Strategy games, this one is not to be missed.

Unlike most games, you do not play the heroes yourself. Instead, you play the role of the king and attempt to entice the heroes in your kingdom to do what you want through placing reward flags on the places you want them to explore, attack or defend. Part of the challenge is learning just how much is needed to entice someone to do something without bankrupting your kingdom in the process, particularly considering that your heroes are as a rule not particularly bright. While this may sound boring, it is actually a uniquely fun twist on the standard RTS format.

Money is the key to the game. Over time, you can expand the hero's guilds to sell them extra abilities and add things like market places and blacksmiths to sell them potions and armor. You can also add defensive structures to your town to help protect it from the steady stream of mobs that will be attacking it. Developing a financial infrastructure to let you pay for the improvements in your heroes and town defense before the more powerful mobs start to attack is crucial to winning the game.

What I particularly liked about Majesty 2 was its challenge and its story line. The original game comes with 16 scenarios that are tied together with a really amusing story line narrated by a dead on Sean Connery impersonator. An expansion adds 8 more high end scenarios. Once you get past the first few tutorial scenarios, they start to become really difficult. While there are certain things you need to do for every scenario to succeed, each scenario requires a different strategy to ultimaly avoid being wiped out. Thus it is not unusual to find yourself an hour into the scenario realizing that you had built your town and heroes all wrong and need to start over again. Getting your heroes powerful enough and your town defenses strong enough to fend off the final waves of boss mobs takes a precise and meticulous strategy which if not done properly will find you watching your town and castle torn to the ground by a swarm of powerful mobs while your heroes cower in their guild houses. How fun is that?

If you look up reviews on this game, you will find many people hating on it because of its difficulty level. I personally love a game that forces you to think through each step and admit when you screwed up and have to start over again. The further you get into Majesty 2, the more mind blowingly difficult each scenario gets. The last two scenarios were so hard I found myself screaming at the computer that this is impossible, turning the game off and then waking up in the middle of the night going "aha, I know what I can do to beat that". You know you are playing a good game when you start to dream about it.

Majesty 2 is not without its flaws. Its biggest flaw is a total lack of replay value. Once you have figured out how to beat a scenario, beating it a second time is really easy even on the most difficult setting. Why they didn't build in a random scenario generator is beyond me. I'd probably still be playing the game if there was one. The expansion introduced a scenario builder, but it is so hard to use that there are only a couple player made scenarios available. I'm still holding out hope that there is enough interest in another expansion to have this added in the future, but that is probably not realistic.

Its other major flaw is a bad AI. Your heroes are really stupid and single minded, and will often walk right past a target to get to something further away. Mob behavior is also way too predictable. The classes could be balanced better as well, with some classes such as Dwarves (yes in this game Dwarves are a class) being far too powerful in relation to the others.

Nonetheless, this is nitpicking, and despite these flaws, Majesty 2 is a game well worth playing. It is unique and compelling and should provide a challenge for even the most seasoned gamer out there. It definitely tops my list of favorite games I have played over the past year or more.