Northland game preview - Page 1 of 1

Northland
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An in-depth strategy game that could be a real hit with Age of Empires and The Sims fans.

What's so special? The graphics are vibrant and make it real easy to play for a long time. It is THE most in-depth game that I have seen in a long time, maybe the most in-depth game ever.

Developer track record: Good question. Their website is in German and I haven’t spoke German since high school. Let’s see… Ich means I… habe means have… and that is all I remember. They were the developers behind Zanzarah and the Cultures series, as well as some game called Catan. I played a Catan board game before, and that was a good game, so these guys are OK in my book.

When I booted this game up I went “Wow, colorful!” Everything has so much color it is a joy on the eyes to play. Unlike some games in the strategy genera that have dark colors and dark backgrounds and dark everything, this game had more colors than I thought existed. Even the fog of war is colorful.

Once I got into the game I realized that the graphics might just be a pleasant side effect. This game is DEEP. It makes the depth of game play in games like Age of Empires seem like a kiddie pool, while Northlands is an Olympic sized pool. I have put at least ten hours into the tutorials and I’m not even halfway through them.

The buildings and combat system are a lot like Age of Empires or Warcraft. You have a bunch of buildings and you can upgrade them to produce better supplies. This is a very in-depth process though, much deeper than anything I have ever seen in a video game.

For example, to build a farm you need a bunch of supplies including tiles. Problem is, you only get tiles with an upgraded pottery shop. This is one of the simpler upgrade-and-build processes.

Sadly, the buildings are the easy to manage part of this game. The interaction with your Vikings is like trying to play The Sims, but with having to control dozens of them.

You have to tell them where to sleep, what job to do, what vehicle to use, when and who to marry, and when to have children. It gives you a lot of flexability with what you do but can be a definite hassle to control all these people.

This game looks like it’ll be great when the final release comes out. If you like The Sims and Age of Empires or just want a game that gives you ultimate control of everything then give this game a shot. I’m looking forward to the full version and will get a review up as it comes out.

Preview by Kris Warshefski.