Customer Reviews

Stronghold 2 Deluxe

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've been playing Stronghold Crusader for years. The crusader trail has been a source of endless enjoyment. I loved the gameplay and if you are familiar with that game you know that it is somewhere between two and three dimensional.
So when I found Crusader 2 and saw all the pictures with 3d characters in hand to hand combat I nearly jumped for joy. But there's no comparison between the old game and the new game. I like the new elements of the game, such as waste control, prisons, even a fox that comes in for a chicken. But stronghold 2 is not a thrill like Crusader. Stronghold 2 delux takes nearly five minutes to load on a Win XP machine, 512ram, 2.6ghz processor and 256mb PCIexpress graphics card with a speedy little 80 gig ATA drive. Its a decent machine that was build just after the game was released. Changing resolution detail dosen't affect the load time. Once the game starts you may be dissappointed in how small the maps are. And how few there are. The trail in Stronghold Delux I completed in about three hours. Stronghold Crusader took me three months. The total population your castle can have in this game is very limited. The biggest challenges in Stronghold 2 are finding enough land to place all your buildings and having enough peasants to work at everything you need. The computer characters, except for Olaf, all play about the same. Olaf seems to have an ability to make unlimited berzerkers. I do really like the fact that they made the floor plan of the historical keeps match the actual keeps but the scale is so off its nearly pointless.
To really enjoy this game after playing Crusader you need to be prepared for a different paradigm. This game is won by sending out small numbers of troops and the harder (knight versus spearman) the better. Crusader I generally win by creating a massive army with three hundred or so members and rush the enemy in a thrilling bloodbath. Stronghold 2 just won't let you do that. You just can't make that many people. This games does have more 3d graphics but they aren't as good as the movie snippits the older Crusader used.