1066 The Game

Andrew O Loughlin

Background

1066 is based around the battle of hastings and as such brings all the major names of that period into play William Duke of Normandy, notable viking chiefs such as king Harald Hardrada and the English king Harold Godwinson.  

the Battle for middle earth as the war was called was such because the middle earth was in those days was the realm of man as the realm of the gods was above and the realm of the dead below.

The Game Background

"1066 is the most famous date in British history, but how might events have been different if you had been commanding the armies that fought for control of England? Take part in our unique and historically accurate strategy game and you'll take the field with the Saxons, the Normans and the Vikings to fight out the visceral, dynamic battles which decided England's fate."Games Tagline

The game was made by channel 4 in conjunction with a t.v. show based on the same events in history, many of the characters that you control in the game thus appear in the show and the idea is that the game may be used by followers of the show to battle each other online.

PlayThe games setup is unique in so far as the game allows for a set amount of units to be recruited into battle while still giving the illusion that the actual scope of the battle is far greater then the small unit numbers given, this is achieved by having multiple men count as one unit and example is such:   

Play Ctd..

The game play thusly changes depending on your choice of units with archers favoring a ranged approach and knights favoring a close quarters melee style environment.

Also the available moves of each piece is different depending on the chosen unit and the interface of each unit having slightly different variations thus adding to the games immersion.

the different styles of game-play can be seen in the game by using the action wheel, the action wheel is the tool used to either attack, move, fortify or taunt the enemy.

Interfaces

   

Interface Ctd..

Ending

Game Immersion

The games style allows the player to take a more central role in the games background and as such having the player control three different armies throughout the campaign also adds a learning element to the game while keeping the players attention firmly on the battle at hand. 

The opportunity to select and deploy different units also gives the player a greater sense of achievement when their chosen army crushes an opponent into dust .

Over all

i found the game to be a quite enjoyable experience, taking elements from classical RTS games such as age of empires, star craft and combining the those key ingredients together to create a well taught out executed game.

that being said the game takes about 4 hours to successfully complete and the stages as with any game get progressively harder as the game continues, the addition of features such as speeding up game play would be a very welcome addition as the game can at times gain a monotonous feel.

that being said i feel the game would be very deserving of 7/10*

*scale is the andrew o loughlin mega ultimate super scale