Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders

"With near perfectly balanced hybrid gameplay, and thoughtful, intuitive controls, Kingdom Under Fire is sure to surprise even the most jaded player. The tactical campaign missions and deep micromanagement system are a game unto themselves. When you add in a never-ending supply of enormous, frantically paced melee skirmishes, with gorgeous visuals to boot, you’re left with what I believe to be one of the best console strategy games to come along in years."

"Kingdom Under Fire: A War of Heroes was a strategy game released in 2001 on the already strategy-glutted PC, so don't be surprised if you may have overlooked it back then. However, the upcoming sequel, Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders, is coming to a platform where strategy games are somewhat underrepresented: the Xbox. The new game is set 50 years after the original game, and it will see the return of the Dark Legion to once again terrorize the land and generally cause a whole lot of havoc. Whereas the original game used a typical overhead RTS-style approach, The Crusaders will present a much more action-oriented view of the clash between the humans and the Dark Legion."

"Once you climb The Crusaders' steep learning curve and experience the wild frenzy of its massive battles, all the game's complexity pays off in spades."

"Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders reminds me of the original N-Gage. It has a severe identity crisis, not knowing whether it's in medieval Europe, or somewhere quite different where airships, rock music and dodgy accents make perfect sense. It doesn't know whether it's a hack and slash game or a tactical masterclass, and although it attempts to combine these, it doesn't do so convincingly. The game tries its luck at many things, but fails to master any of them. Worst of all, it neglects its duty to convey emotion to the player, leaving them with little but blank, bored faces and an indifferent mind. It might satisfy fans of whatever odd genre this falls into for a while with its included online gameplay, but for the rest of us it's a definite case of try before you buy. After all, that's what the old bearded gentleman would suggest."

"A good buy if you like Dynasty Warriors, but it's got some problems, so beware."