Platform: Nintendo Wii/Wiiware
ESRB: E10+
Genre: Real-time Strategy
Number of Players: 1-2
Developer: Ronimo Games
Release Date: May 15^th 2009 (PAL), June 8^th 2009 (NA)
Rating: 7.5 out of 10
Swords & Soldiers website: http://www.swordsandsoldiers.com

Those of you who are looking for their next Wiiware download may be interested to know about this game. “Swords & Soldiers” is being touted as a must for your collection by many sites and magazines, and I can see why.

“Swords & Soldiers” is a real-time strategy game, but for me it was more like a “point & click”. However, considering that most Wiiware releases don’t really make use of much else apart from the Wiimote, I guess you could say they were all like that.

The animation for the game is 2D, and this gives it a light-hearted cartoon feeling. The music and sound effects mainly clear and appropriate for each setting – although you may find instances where you’ll scratch your head in confusion.

There are 4 menu options once you chosen your save file slot: Single Player, Multiplayer, Options, and Credits. Click on Single Player and you get a new menu: Campaign, Skirmish, Challenges, and Achievements.

Campaign allows you to choose between Vikings, Aztecs or Chinese and carry out their stories. All are trying to outdo each other in the power and glory stakes – all of which I have gotten myself stuck trying to finish.

Skirmish allows you to duke it out against the computer, where you can pit Vikings against Vikings and battle each other to the death. You get to choose the size of the map, and in the options you pick what amount of gold, mana and workers you start out with, as well as your handicap.

Challenges allow you 3 choices: Survival, Berserker Run, and Boulder. Survival has you playing to keep your team alive for as long as you can by collecting resources and building your army as quickly as possible to fend off attackers – the longer you play the better. Berserker Run sees you guiding “Arnie the Berserker” across the map, trying to keep him alive for as long as possible. Like Survival, the aim is to stay alive longer to achieve a better score, however the score is determined by how many yards you reach before Arnie meets his demise. Finally, Boulder – I am sad to say I have not unlocked it yet so I am unable to tell you about it.

Achievements gives you the opportunity to have a look at all of the things you have yet to achieve – for instance, there’s one called “Where Are The Kangaroos?” which you achieve by completing a particular Viking level.

Back to the very first menu, and Multiplayer is next. Multiplayer requires 2 Wiimotes to be connected before you are able to choose it. Once you do, you’ll see that it’s just the same as Skirmish for single player mode with the exception of you playing versus your friend rather than the computer. You are also able to pick what colour you want your team to be as well.

Options allows you to change the language, music and FX volumes, and game speed options to your liking. Credits are as you would expect – a roll call of all the ladies and gents involved in making the game, as well as people and places that gave them help and inspiration (e.g. MC Hammer, Matt Damon and Chun Li to name a few). You need to press a button to end it playing though, otherwise it keeps going… and going …

Usually we mention what the female aspect of the game would be. In this game the only female portion I found was in the Viking settings – where they are buxom blonde gold-diggers. Nice.

The team behind this game have done a good job with this Wiiware release – although at times I found it frustrating clicking, waiting, building resources, clicking, waiting … I think you get the idea.

Often the length of time given to gather a certain amount of resources to forge your troops wasn’t long enough before your enemies came by – but, you could probably overlook it with the humorous dialogue used in Campaign mode. Let me just say I would never have thought of making Thor (the God of Thunder, above) speak like Mr T – to quote: “Enough of this jibba-jabba!”

For the majority of this game I enjoyed playing it – that was until I got stuck. I loved the humour in the dialogue and the characters were all unique (including the bratty child Chinese Emperor), although there were a lot of stereotypes at the same time. I would say give it a go, and if you’re unsure then check out some game trailers or see if one of your friends has it to give it a go. Unfortunately there aren’t any demos available to my knowledge.