Blood & Magic (1996)
Genres:Strategy, Real Time Strategy (RTS)
Themes:Action
Game modes:Single player, Multiplayer
Story:Be a mage in the Forgotten Realms and battle with other mages for control of the lands.
I used to love playing this game. I remember having fond memories of trying to raise an army of zombies and having a ton of golems just sitting around producing mana so I could make more golems to transform them into warriors. This game is a blast and while I'm sure it's very clunky to play, it was a great RTS game for a small kid from the '90s who loved playing RTS games like Knights and Merchants, Warcraft, Starcraft, Dawn of War.
Fantastic RTS in D&D lore. Has some flaws, the gameplay is slow, the pathfinding is poor and units are unbalanced (some units combination are OP, for instance stone golem + gnome who can repair golem for free), but overall it's very fun and addictive game. It's also worth mentioning the great painted cutscenes, the wonderful intro, and the narrator's voice that tells us the plot. After completing the game (which is quite long) we have the opportunity to play in a new "conquest" mode, which is a very interesting addition.
This game is a lot of fun, even if it does get repetitive after a while. I was never able to finish the hardest campaign as a kid - and now my physical copy always crashes before I get there, so I still can't finish it. It would be great if GOG could make this work again!
I remember playing this a few times as a kid as back then wasn't aloud to us the computer all the time and now that I'm older would love to get the chance to play and just enjoy the feel of a classic like this and hope that GOG can get this and bring it back so others can enjoy it as much as did,
Playing both sides of the campaign made me become eager to complete this game and the end-game content keeps this game interesting by adding new scenario challenges.
The artwork and well told storylines make it worth to be preserved as a game in the ever expanding D&D realms.
Flashbacks are flickering before my eyes... please bring them into focus GOG! This is just from an era where creativity was free from capitalism, and was expressed not only through music and art, but through video games as well! The more of these strange gems that we can keep alive the better.
I used to play this game as a kid when my uncle introduced this game to me. I am never going to forget the times when I was like 10 years old, listening to old radio and playing this game even though I could not understand a single English word – I did not mind. As a generetion Z kid I want this game back!
A bit slow by today's standards for the genre, even if you turn the speed all the way up, but a unique game for all that. One resource, just mana, and you generate it automatically. However, your 'base' units ALSO make it. But they're also used to build buildings(literally), and are converted into the other units of the game.
Also, just a fun quirk of the game, but the game has cheat codes, but they effect both sides. Max Mana? The other guy gets it to(doesn't matter for AI since it just has infinite). However, if you ask for a free unit, if you're playing good, the evil side gets one too. If you're evil though? Well then, you get both the one at your forge AND a second at the enemy's. Really fun times.
Oh, and the stories are CLASSIC DnD styled stuff, coming as both random adventures of heroes fighting evil, moral quandaries where both sides are in the wrong, and even a full on joke one that has fun with the ideas, leading up to an adventure mode where you conquer the whole map, which leads to a final unique gauntlet to finally win the battle and claim dominion.
It's a good time.
I remember playing this game when I should have been revising for my exams. 😅
When it was released it looked a little bit dated and slow compared to the likes of Warcraft II, and the UI wasn't as user-friendly as the big RTS games of the time. Still this game had a lot of interesting game mechanics in terms of its economy, good unit variety, and the ability to choose multiple campaign paths. If it had been released in early 1995 before Warcraft II and Command & Conquer were released this game could have been a bigger commercial hit. Unfortunately it arrived about a year too late for that to happen. Still a very fun game, and while it didn't have the flash of its competitors, it had a lot of depth.
I still have my original big box version, and I would love to be able to play it again without any fuss through GOG.com.
Black & WhitePlay the role of a deity in a land where the surroundings are yours to shape and its people are yours to lord over. Be an evil, malevolent god and the natives will worship you with fear in their eyes. Play as a kind, benevolent god and they will worship you with love in their hearts. Your actions decide whether you create a heaven or hell for your worshipers. Then select a creature from the land to act as your representative in the world. Raise it to gigantic proportions and teach it to do your bidding--whether the animal grows into an evil colossus of mass destruction or a kind and gentle giant is up to you. Progress through the game's rich storyline performing powerful miracles to battle other deities and become the world's supreme god.Top Trending Open world Sandbox
Black & White 2In the game, the player takes the role of a god called from the void (nothingness) to help those who invoked them. However, the player is not an omnipotent style god, but rather a god who rises and falls with his believers and the player must help develop their nature according to their good or evil desires. The player also has a creature, their physical representation in the world, which takes the form of an anthropomorphic ape, lion, wolf, turtle, cow, or tiger. Its physical manifestation can grow to an immense size, and adopt a good or evil persona separate of the player's. They develop their character as the player rewards or punishes their actions. In addition to the god simulation and city-building elements introduced in the original Black & White, Black & White 2 also features elements of real-time strategy gameplay, with the addition of controllable warfare and fighting units.Top Trending Action Fantasy Comedy Sandbox
Command & Conquer: The Ultimate CollectionAre you ready for the ultimate real-time strategy experience? Gather resources, build your base, and create the most powerful armies in the world before engaging the enemy in all-out war. Fight as the Global Defense Initiative or the Brotherhood of Nod as they clash over the rare mineral Tiberium in the classic original series. Challenge the red menace in an alternate universe in Red Alert, then step into the near future with Generals as China and the United States battle the Global Liberation Army, a terrorist organization hell-bent on bringing the world to its knees. However you play, you’ll enjoy limitless hours of RTS Command & Conquer gaming with 10 base games and 7 in-depth expansion packs.
Note: GameSpy ended all hosted game services in 2014, which affects the online multiplayer aspect of one or more games in the collection. Learn more about this in our FAQ.
Game Features:
Engage in intense, strategic battles. Make the most of every move as you order soldiers, vehicles, and aircraft across large maps filled with enemies, traps, and mission-critical resources. Move single troops, select small groups, or issue a unified attack order to all allies as you work to defeat the opponent.
Collect, create, conquer. Success in battle requires more than just a keen battle strategy. Fight for control as you struggle to collect the resources necessary to build new bases, troops, and weaponry, all while keeping the enemy at bay.
Command and Conquer everything. Explore the wide range of Command & Conquer games and fight every war from both sides! Rediscover the epic conflicts across two decades of gameplay. Take a first-person view of the C&C universe through Command & Conquer: Renegade – the series’ one and only first-person shooter – or start playing from the very beginning and enjoy the frenetic style of combat, immersive strategy and campy banter that launched a generation of strategy warfare games.Top Action Warfare Science fiction Sandbox
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earthThe players control the heroes or villians from the famous Lord of The Rings movies. With a hero characters similar to the Warcraft series you control both the armies and all the unique heroes. The game follows the movies very closely and even got scenes from the films appear in game. Not only does the game contain a giant campaign where you play through the journey of the ring as the good side, the game also features an evil campaign where as the players play as the evil forces of Middle Earth. With multiple diffrent races from all over Middle Earth, a giant spell tree to customize your game and a unique basebuilding layout the game was great for its time.Top Fantasy Warfare
StarCraftStarCraft is a strategic game set in a Galaxy far away on multiple planets. Its style and balance between the three antagonistic species it features is unique and appealed to millions.Top Warfare Science fiction
Warcraft III: Reign of ChaosWarcraft 3: Reign of Chaos is an RTS made by Blizzard Entertainment. Take control of either the Humans, the Orcs, the Night Elves or the Undead, all with different unit types and heroes with unique abilities.Play the story driven single player campaign, go online to play default- or custom maps against people around the world or create your own maps with the map creation tool.Top Fantasy Warfare
Age of EmpiresAge of Empires (AoE) is a history-based real-time strategy video game developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft. The game uses the Genie, a 2D sprite-based game engine. The game allows the user to act as the leader of an ancient civilization by advancing it through four ages (the Stone, Tool, Bronze, and Iron Ages), gaining access to new and improved units with each advance.Top Historical Warfare
DuneDune is a 1992 video game, based upon Frank Herbert's science fiction novel of the same name. Developed by Cryo Interactive, is the first of the Dune computer games. Dune blended adventure with economic and military strategy, and is considered by many the most immersive Dune computer game. Loosely following the story of the novel, the game casts the player as Paul Atreides, with the ultimate goal of driving the Harkonnen from Planet Dune, while managing spice extraction, military, and later, ecology through the native Fremen tribes.
As the player progresses, his troops are equipped with weapons from "crysknives" to atomics, tap into Paul's latent psychic powers, and get acquainted with such characters from the book as Chani and Liet-Kynes.Top Science fiction
Warcraft II: Tides of DarknessWarcraft II: Tides of Darkness is a Strategy video game published by Blizzard Entertainment released on 1995 for MS-DOS. Warcraft 2 is a successor of the popular Warcraft real-time strategy game. The game contains many improvements over the previous version in graphics, sounds and playability. The Multiplayer was also greatly improved allowing up to 8 players in the marvelous multiplayer skirmish.Fantasy
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth IIWage war in the North and assume command of the most storied civilizations in all of Middle-earth history - the Elven and Dwarven armies - or fight on the side of Evil with heroes and creatures that have never been seen in The Lord of the Rings films. Defend or overtake never before seen lands such as Dol Guldur, The Misty Mountains, and Mirkwood as you unleash powerful new weapons and abilities, such as summoning dragons.Trending Fantasy Warfare