Age of Heroes II: Underground Horror

Virtually everyone has seen Lord of the Rings and has probably played the game(s) or experienced Dungeons and Dragons or any of the various spin-off versions of this style of game. If this is something that you have a particular soft spot for then you will be enthusiastic to try your spellcasting hands at this epic title Age of Heroes II: Underground Horror.

This title is an RPG and strategy game which allows you to explore all the various caves and forests in a mythical land whilst dispatching the evil from these lands. The movement throughout the various locations is free roaming although you are limited to a set number of moves per go. By using your cursor as you would with a mouse in a straight forward point and click manner, you are able to navigate your way around the level. The camera allows you to look around the map freely so you can locate enemies and allies as well as the houses which may provide you with potions, quests or an ambush!

You play a Necromancer, Ortega, who from the start is asked by a Gnome to help rid the lands of the undead blight that is the scourge of these ancient lands. In a multiple choice conversation you can determine the outcome from any character you come into contact with. By choosing the right choice you will be helped, however, by choosing incorrectly you may provoke a violent response.

In the initial confrontations you are fairly rusty particularly in the skills of magic, but fortunately the more fights you have the more advanced you become and better enabled to fight these dark forces and indeed send them back from whence they came. You are able to improve your character through improved abilities which you can pick whether it’s attack, defence, magic etc. I found it best to improve the defensive capabilities more than anything as otherwise you will seldom get beyond the first few screens. Another useful glitch to take advantage of is flipping between screens where friendly allies gather, by doing so you can muster an impressive force which will scare many of the undead to their, err… bones!

Simply put, this is a great adventure and quite an epic battle for good against evil. You can tailor the games features to suit, from speed of play, grid view and difficulty – which will suit the novice to advanced turn-based RPG player. There is a good mixture of spells, abilities and artefacts which will enable you to go deeper into the game than you were previously able to do so.

If you are looking for a quick game, then this is not going to be great for you as there’s a bit of thinking involved and through learning the maps, remembering your quest and the smaller sub-missions, you will definitely get a lot more from this game. Having said that, I got drawn into the game quite easily and found myself playing the game for much longer than I anticipated each time (one time, I had to recharge the battery due to playing it for hours!)

Rating 93%

Positives

Enjoyable and highly engaging

Massive environment and lots of creatures to encounter (good and bad)

Plenty to do and lots of ways to improve your character to suite your game playing style

Great music

Part of a long established franchise – lots more new versions to enjoy after/if you complete it!

Negatives

A little repetitive at times

Even the easiest setting was quite difficult

Movement was frustrating – if only the cursor remained where you wanted and the moves were able to be set to ‘automatic’ to limit repetitive key presses.