Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I’ll tell you what looks good. King Arthur 2 looks good. The sequel to 2009′s fantasy “role-playing wargame” (see our review here), King Arthur 2 sounds like it’ll be that most noble of gaming sequels- taking everything that we liked about the first game, and gently tightening it up and making it that much bigger. None of this trying to appeal to a broader audience or revolutionise things. Just taking that great idea, and making it even stronger. And, in this case, adding a crapload of dragons. I’m talking about dragons blocking out the sun. You’ve got to see this.
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I’m going to the annual Paradox Interactive convention next week, where developers will says things to me like “We’ve finally corrected the hat height of our 16th century Polish Hussars!” And I will nod like a man trying to escape from the tender embrace of a headcrab. But it won’t all be inaccessible historic strategy games! Hark: Neocore has just released a teaser trailer for King Arthur 2, which awaits your inexhaustible attention beneath the jump. Seriously, what are they feeding you?
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Paradox did a funny when announcing that historical strategy Lionheart: Kings’ Crusade is to be renamed to simply The King’s Crusade:

Richard The Lionheart, the leading historical figure in last year’s immersive real-time strategy game Lionheart: Kings’ Crusade, has undergone a name change. Explaining his decision, the legendary warrior said, “I just felt ‘Richard The Lionheart’ was a bit of a mouthful. I felt I wanted something a little snappier when the little people were addressing me. Therefore, from now on I shall be addressed simply as ‘King’. It’s short, easy to remember, and sums me up perfectly!”

Ha. The game is getting two expansions in early 2011. Arabian Nights will arrive on February 8th full of Saracen forces, the second expansion, Teutonic Knights, will be about Teutonic Knights and related Crusader stuff. No date on that, yet.

Neocore’s new “Role-playing Wargame”, King Arthur, has been available for a couple of weeks now, and I’ve been sinking a surprisingly large amount of time into it. It’s a little bit Total War, a little bit fantasy, and a little bit unlike anything else out there. Read on for a round-table discussion of wot I think…
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King Arthur, a supernatural “role-playing wargame” from Neocore games in Hungary, surely is looking neat (although rather similar to their previous Crusaders: Thy Kingdom Come). In the video below the excitingly-named Zoltan Varga explains a little about what that genre-mash means, and what the mystical medievalism of the game entails. Varga talks through the dialogue trees that knights will face, and shows how the game is a little bit like Total War’s turn-based vs real-time mix, only with more focus on the development of the individual knights.

Just so you have a flavour of the game, that guy above is lovely Sir Lancelot, and – as the video reveals – foot-soldiers are at risk of being dragged into spell-summoned hell-vortexes in the sky. Yeah, comedy cavaliers it ain’t. Go watch the video.
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