Back in the end of 90's, Knights & Merchants used to be one of the most fantastic strategy games of glorious RTS era. The typical "build your economy and then - army" system works there fantastic. Watching how the merry workers carry wood and bricks, work on a field or inside their houses, is extemely enjoyable. The variety of buildings isn't that great, but it's always fun to observe how the city grows. The military part of a game is even better. We manually order certain amount of swords, axes, shield, bows and crossbows and then recruit soldiers: footknights, distant fighter and cavalry. A possibility of forming lines, using "rush" mode and pros and cons of each unit type, gave us an advanced form of fighting, in comparison to other RTS games of that time. Also the graphics and music are better than in Settlers III, and the campaign gave us a good, medieval story. So where are those major flaws? Well, the German developer never supported the game with and adequate patch, so you would see how your workers get stuck and don't build a structure, they're supposed to. It's really annoying. And double-annoying is a fact, that Peasent Rebellion as a second version of a game and it lacks this patch too. The second thing is a difficulty level. Your enemies are always a big-army badasses and on the levels 7+ there are is no space for mistakes. What's more - building a city that's able to create weapons for lots of soldiers and feed them take hours. Sometimes 1 mission could ate even 10h! And last, but not least, it's fine that you got 2 campaigns and some scenarios, but it's simply isn't enought. Nevertheless - if you're a fan of RTS games and classic economy/military strategy games, you can't miss it. But brace yourself it wouldn't be a sunday walk!
As a kid I admired this game as a extreme bloodfest. After years I discovered how precisely the world was build, how many cultural and pop-cultural references it cointans. Just brilliant.
"What's more epic than epic?" says motto on kind of gaming poster (with 4chan origin I expect). Yeah, this is true - Duke is a legend and even today he still has something to say. Vast area in each mission is not only "fight-n-forward" type of shooter - there are dozens of riddles, secret (and extremely secret) places or easter eggs. There is also quite a lot of freedom, interaction (famous "porn" cabines and go-go clubs), and - yeah - atmosphere. L.A. streets? Casino? Sushi bar? Train and cinema? Space station? Alien lair? Sci-fi areas? All inclusive.
