Age of Wonders

April 25, 2002

Price: $10 (Jewel case)

Everyone is still chasing Master of Magic. Released in 1995 by Simtex, the game was trashed heavily by most major gaming magazines for being outrageously buggy. Though a patch would later arrive to fix many of the associated issues, magazines at the time were not yet used to evaluating games as evolving merchandise (few gamers were on the internet at the time, meaning that patch updates were usually incorporated into official "expansion packs" for games, as a bonus feature, rather than being widely available to users) and failed to look past the bugs to see that the potential for one of the best remembered and loved games of all times was there.

The 1995 Master of Magic

Combining the best aspects of Civilization and Sim City (while eliminating some of the more frustrating complexities) where gamers could build a virtual empire one town at a time, it mixed into it a detailed combat system and a mythology straight out of the Magic: The Gathering collectible card game. Players took on the role of various wizards, shamans, and priestesses, each specializing in a different form of magic (chaos, nature, sorcery, death, and life) and possessing skills such as "artificer" or "sage master" that allowed players to construct enchanted items for their heroes or research spells even faster to defend their cities.

Triumph Studios, the developer of Age of Wonders, was quite specific in calling their game the spiritual descendent of Master of Magic. Though many of the same elements were there, including a highly touted number of "races" to choose from (I think "species" would be more appropriate to differentiate between groups of lizard people and the undead legions), the comparison was not really appropriate.

The interface has several special effects

While many of the features were similar, such as a multi-tiered world (where Triumph Studios was beaten to the punch by 3DO and their Heroes of Might and Magic series), they were missing out on the most vital element: the cities and the people, the inspiration Master of Magic took from Civilization: the random map for every game.

Though there are many "spiritual" descendents of Master of Magic, the Age of Wonders series (the demo for the sequel is out as I write this), the Heroes of Might and Magic series (now on its fourth incarnation), and even the newer Disciples' franchise--they all share one feature: players cannot place or build their own cities and have to make use of the ones already on the game map. Most likely, this is caused by necessity of having lush graphics in order to sell games today; as the pre-rendered terrains are not quite as flexible as that of Master of Magic, which used a very basic top-down view of a tiled landscape, making it rather easy to calculate things such as how many forests a city had access to.

Heroes may explore dungeons to
win powerful artifacts

While all of these newer games allow players to upgrade their cities, little thought is given to non-martial matters or the people that populate them, other than perhaps the chance of the city rebelling, as in Age of Wonders. These are all military strategy games--not building or "empire" games.

Age of Wonders is more varied than its competition, and quite beautiful, though in a particularly sterile kind of way, lacking the personality and charm of Heroes of Might and Magic and the lush vibrancy of Disciples.

The city siege aspect is particularly well
developed, a gold dragon attacking a tower

It is also damn hard. Though the game is divided into the "good" and "evil" campaign settings, the first mission of each were nearly impossible to beat. Heroes and armies, including the ones that you begin with, require upkeep, often making it impossible to upgrade your first city until you capture a second city, a few farmsteads, and a gold mine or two. Furthermore, the death of your main hero will automatically end the game. This persuaded me to focus my hero's skills on archery and long range magic, in an effort to keep her alive. Unfortunately, the rest of the troops were seldom enough to hold back the enemy hordes and beating even the first scenario was looking hopeless. Turning to guides for the game, I discovered that a hero specializing in melee skills such as "life steal" and "regeneration" that put every point into defense, rather than attack power, could often wade through entire opposing armies without assistance. With the addition of a "spider climb" ability, such a hero could also conquer enemy cities and outposts without requiring the usual siege equipment such as rams and catapults. The game, in short, became a breeze. However, later scenarios became increasingly taxing as they added two or even three underground levels of caves and passages, exponentially increasing the amount of time it took to win--or lose. Only the hardest-core strategy nut could enjoy a single scenario that would take upwards of ten hours to complete.

For $10, Age of Wonders is an entertaining enough diversion for those wanting to relive the Fellowship of the Ring. Unfortunately, it runs out of gas rather quickly. Despite its more unique features, it is overshadowed by competing offerings, even at its current price point. With any luck, the sequel to Age of Wonders will be looking back to Master of Magic for inspiration--though I suspect having to compete in feature bloat with the latest in the genre will make that an impossibility.

by Richard Leader

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