The Voodoo Priestess has called upon undead warriors. The Chaos
Master is summoning a doom drake. Cities are being consumed by
the plague. What are you going to do?
Play your role in this clash between wizards, command your troops
and conquer other countries, destroy all who stand in your way or
be the first who casts the legendary Spell of Mastery!
This is an epic adventure you cannot miss!
Minimum system requirements: Windows XP or Windows Vista, 1 GHz Processor (1.4 GHz recommended), 256MB RAM (512 recommended), 3D graphics card compatible with DirectX 7 (compatible with DirectX 9 recommended), Mouse, Keyboard.
Average customer rating 5.0 out of 5.0
A True Classic
(by
Giaddon)
The basics: a turn-based strategy game in the vein of Civilization (develop towns, build armies, manage diplomatic relations, conquer enemies), set in a high fantasy world.... full review
What makes it special, and worth your time even today, is the sheer amount of options and choices you can make. No other strategy game of this type gives you the freedom Master of Magic does. At the very beginning you can design your own civilization, selecting the attributes of your commanding wizard and the type of race you'd like to lead. You can hire heroes to lead your armies, and give them powerful enchanted artifacts to wield. You can learn new spells, which have effects as simple as doing damage to an enemy unit to opening a portal to a parallel "mirror world." The units you can command range from simple Halfling slingers to powerful demons, giant sea turtles that can carry armies on their backs, and flying griffins.
Having a version that will run smoothly on today's computers is a gift.
In spite of its age, Master of Magic is, without doubt, still occupying a small space on many hard drives. The game is, in short, a clone of Civilization set in a typical heroic fantasy setting. However, the combat aspect of Civivilization has been greatly enhanced in this game : when stacks of enemy units meet, the game turns into a small tactical screen where you can direct them... full review in a turn-based combat. Master of Magic also includes enough elements of role-playing game to interest RPG gamers. Ordinary units gain experience with time, and you can hire heroes representing the usual heroic fantasy classes. You can also create their own weapons to suit their powers. Your own personnage, the main magician, also obeys some RPG codes, with traits, abilities and magical specializations that can lead him, or her, to master dozains and dozains of spells of all types. The number of different units and races that exist in the game is astonishing. Everything is here, from all kind of invoqued beasts and undeads to the whole range of heroic fantasy units, belonging to 15 different races. Note that your realm will be multi-racial anyway. You choose a starting race but, while you expand, you'll conquer others and will access to their respective units. Finally, the map is randomized like in Civ, except that the game world is actually flat, with two different faces (a bright one and a dark one) that you can access through portals. This adds another welcome level of strategy.
Sometimes, you wonder why there is no add-on and no Master of Magic II. The answer to that question is simple : because it's pretty near perfect. There is nothing you could add to this game to make it better.
Old man, you seek some decent classics!
(by
ElBarto)
And so another time has come, which would make me join Good Old Games, if I hadn't done that already :)... full review
People often refer to this game as "the best" one of its genre. I personally consider such statements should be avoided when it comes to something heavily determined by taste. Thus I'll just say "my favorite".
The first impression was probably similar everywhere, regarding its resemblance to Civilization, mostly caused by the looks of a map, city screen, units, etc. Each further step though, I've been realizing how much it differs, how many of its own concepts it's introducing, making it totally represent the quality of its own.
One of the most important general aspects, distinguishing it from most of the earlier MPS strategy titles, is that your initial choices, of the characterand its abilities, of the starting race, really do affect the gameplay heavily.
Would you be a Nature magic "ultimate landlord"? Choose Life and immediately rumble through the land with Torin? Become a Chaos wizard and overwhelm whole business at the start with your flame strike? Maybe few books from various realms, hoping to get the Change terrain, Chaos channels and Flight at the same time? Maybe start on the Myrror, and save on logistics? Maybe get the grunty Dark Elves and breed them and power? Maybe start with the cute mighty Halflings whom everybody loves, so you can conquer other races with your Slingers, not causing too much unrest? What armies would fit better against your enemies - the Warlocks and Hammerhands? The Paladins and Longbowmen?
Such wide range of narrow choices can make each played game significantly different.
Another important thing is a progressive nature of the game, each level of your development having its own aims and joys - no boredom at start, no micromanagement-overdump by the end.
Spiced with its own specific climate, combined with and all the interesting concepts (two planes, the units' expanded properties and ways of improving these, the armies and heroes, combat solution, power nodes), it all guarantees the ultimate (re)playability value, potentially making Master of Magic the game to go back to once in a while, certified for at least as many years as have passed so far since its release.
The game had been heavily underestimated by the time, due to the amount of technical issues present when first released, sadly making the game hardly playable, especially at the advanced stage. It did quite spoil the impression of the great design work and ideas put into this title, making them hard to enjoy or even discover.
As we all know though, that chapter's left somewhere in the previous century, the game has been well patched in the meantime (not perfectly, but gotten rid of the showstoppers), thus we can safely go back, and give it another chance / discover it again / play it again / finish the High Men Life game and start the Chaos Beastmen one, underline the appropriate :)
Giaddon)
ElBarto)