Ancient Empires II

Chess is a pretty old game by all accounts. Tracing its roots back to 2nd century BC China, depending upon the scholar you believe, and evolving through India and as-then Persia (now Iraq and the Middle East), it’s existed in one form or another for over 2,200 years. While the rules have occasionally changed (the ones commonly used today are thought to have originated in Italy in the 15th century), at its roots it’s still the same simple game that can be picked up in minutes but takes a lifetime to master.

Ancient Empires II bears several parallels to this classic game; firstly, it’s a game of strategy that you take it in turns to play and, secondly, it’s just as easy to get into yet requires a certain level of commitment to progress. Thirdly, it's an excellent game that has all the marks of being a classic that'll be played for years to come...

Set in a far away land, where wisps (ethereal spirits of the forest) and skeletons roam the land, you play as two brothers. One, King Galamar, has just returned from fighting evil forces to rebuild his shattered kingdom, only to find that the forces of darkness are once again afoot, stealing three precious crystals. Prophecy speaks of a primordial power that can be used to destroy or protect an empire and it rapidly becomes clear that it’s the former that the thieves are more interested in…

With the safety of the kingdom in your hands, it’s off to war you go. Each mission provides you with a different objective to achieve, ranging from the straight-forward ‘destroy the enemy forces’ to more complex ‘capture and hold and survive’ examples.

Viewed from above, you take it in turns to move and fight with the various units at your disposal, with your turn ending when all of your troops have had a chance to stretch their legs. And thus the game proceeds, until you succeed or fail in achieving your objectives.

And while that is, in essence, all there is to Ancient Empires II, the panache and thought with which it’s been executed mean that we’ve come back to replay it more times than many other games we've played lately. While the story mode provides a strong narrative background and setting for each battle, the quick skirmish mode that enables you to trade blows with up to three of your chums is priceless. Using the ‘hotseat’ style of play, you use the single handset and pass it to each of your friends as their turns roll around.

The battles are swift, entertaining and never one-sided. The various troop types on offer (archers, footsoldiers, siege weapons, skeletons, sorceress’, elementals and more) each possess different offensive and defensive strengths and these come into play as you try and figure out which unit to attack the enemy with first in order to ensure the maximum amount of damage. This might sound a tad complicated, especially if you’ve never played a strategy game before. But it’s all so intuitive that you can easily pick the basics up as you play.

The learning curve is perfectly pitched to maintain your interest in the main stroy mode with a new challenge or troop type to be mastered in each mission, but you're never overloaded with new information. Meanwhile, the skirmish and multiplayer modes each provide quick-fire bursts of fun for less structured play. It might not be terribly original (it borrows elements from several other games that we’ve come across before) but Ancient Empires II takes them and fashions them into a thoroughly enjoyable and well-rounded pocket gaming experience that is in a class all of its own.