King Arthur: The Role-playing Wargame

If Clive Owen has taught me anything, it's that King Arthur was nothing like Clive Owen. Thankfully, this King Arthur has nothing to do with Clive Owen's rendition, so Clive Owen need never be mentioned.

Depositing the player in Arthur's boots, this King Arthur is a real-time strategy set in a fantasy Britain full of magic and conflict Using the Total War template, it has the usual combination of turn-based campaign maps and large-scale tactical warfare, but throws a few RPG elements into the mix. Recruiting lesser kings and knights into your army gives you upgradeable hero units, whose special abilities range from military to magical in nature, and whose status can be improved with the acquisition of loot, fiefs and wives.

Meanwhile your Arthur persona is shaped by your actions and choices, with morality and religion unlocking special powers. Such choices may come in the form of killing one king instead of another during your campaign, or by completing text-based quests that pop up every known and then. This is the strongest part of the game: a plethora of genre-bending components that add up to an original strategy experience.

The production values are high, with wonderfully detailed visuals and some of the lushest foliage in an RTS, but the game does suffer from a few strategy hiccups. Namely, battles often devolve into a confusing mass of red and blue flags, units have a tendency to ignore orders, and attacking archers results in Benny Hill chases across the landscape.

If you can forgive these occasional frustrations however, King Arthur will serve as a pleasant change from Total War, and a distraction from Clive Owen.