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Reviews Empire Craft - a Fantasy Brainstorm
What’s so special?
Empire Craft is a browser-based SLG game which is easy to login by its characteristic. My PC isn’t of a high configuration, but on such a platform I can easily login and play while another 15 windows are open, so it is very suitable for the office workers who want to relax themselves from all-day-long thinking and typing. The main content of this game is enclosure, arms expansion, cities occupation and territory seizing. It’s strong in strategy and could be called a mind war online.
http://ec.hithere.com
World view:
Fantasy is one of the main themes of interactive games all over the world, and the Empire Crafts’ background story is based on that: “All sins came from the Magic Crystal’s tremendous power while the endless greed lures the human to fall. Finally the war was launched and hence started the catastrophe in the Dark Millennium. The dwarfs, the humans stand in line with the Orcs toward the demon race while small-scaled conflicts which involve each other’s interests occur among them. The complex world view of fantasy is easy to pull the players into the fantasy of the war zone of the Dark Millennium.”
http://ec.hithere.com
Graphics:
Players often neglect the visual effect of browser-based games. Rough texture and boring story are the players’ impression for such kind of games. I used to think this “Craft” thing is no way out of the circle, but the designing ability of Oak Pacific Interactive and its serious attitude to the web-game deeply touched me. The developer is worthy for the name of a major market player which developed the Cat Travels, the Double Strange Tale and a few other successful web-games. OPI has taken advantage of its profound designing foundation in designing the Empire Crafts. The vivid textures truly display the manors, farm lands and deserts in the western fantasy world. The static graphics are also breathing. I love the dwarf’s building style the most. The plain dwelling dwarfs decorate their residence with the green plants here and there, and even the ponderous battlements are covered with branches and leaves.
http://ec.hithere.com
Game Systems
Operation system
Web-games are made for the players who want to have an easy time, and most of them are office workers, so the operation must be simple. The city building and the army dispatching are simplified as a few mouse clicks. Of course, if you are a web-game master who develops seven or eight cities at the same time, there would be a lot of clicking. I’m glad to see Empire Crafts’ brief and clear tutorials, and the arrow indicates are clear too see. That means I can follow the little arrow to do all the operations while documents writing.
http://ec.hithere.com
Task system
Although the Empire Craft is a strategy game, it has a perfect system which really astonishes me. Tasks in the game can be sorted as newbie tasks, development tasks and union tasks. By completing those tasks, the players could receive different rewards. The newbie tasks are just like the simplified walkthrough. Since I’m not a game fanatic, easy understanding is important to me, as I could study how to upgrade the mines, buy special items step by step; the development tasks are like the daily tasks in the MMORPG games. The rewards are keys to the chests. It’s cool to get those money-costing items for free by this way; the union tasks provide chances for the union members to show off their wealth.
http://ec.hithere.com
Battle system
Each of the three races in the Empire Craft has special characterized arms, while building an army, the player must considerate the balance between aggression and defense. If you neglect this balance, your fighting power won’t be able to effect once encountered the nemesis of a certain arm. I had such an experience that my 800 soldiers were beaten by 700 enemy forces. Firstly I take it as a bug, but then it proved my ignorance and I could only go back to check the profiles of different arms. Such setting would definitely suck the player deeper into the game, and pay time to think about the whole campaign planning which includes scouting, analyzing and the dispatching of heroes and armies.
http://ec.hithere.com
Hero system
Besides the army building, the hero system is necessary as leaders in a battle are in need after all. All the three races in the game have both male and female heroes. All kinds of heroes can be found in bars in the main cities. Every newly hired hero is grade 1 at first. Based on the heroes’ basic points, qualifications and features, they can be sorted into white, green, blue and purple hierarchies with the purple heroes are the best. Theoretically, after the first hero upgrades to 10 grades, 7 heroes could be refreshed out, but the newbie should better give up this idea, because the resources consumption is horrible as it is enough to build a few cities. Generally, 3 heroes are enough. It’s not surprising to have hero setting in this game but the next system is really unique.
http://ec.hithere.com
Arena system
Actually, this system should be taken as a subsystem under the hero system. But for its uniqueness in the strategy game, I intentionally list it out. Heroes beyond 10 grades can have a try in the arena. There is a grade balance settings, which cadets won’t be suppressed by the veterans. So to win or to lose is decided by the hero’s equipment and qualifications. How to get that shinny equips? Rob them! What’s more, your heroes would pick up a fight with random challenger while you are not logged in. So this system forces you to fight, if you do not challenge others, you’d be passive and beaten black and blue.
http://ec.hithere.com
Conclusion
After 3 weeks of experiencing, the writer judges the Empire Craft a very nice browser-based SLG game. The fantasy world view, sophisticated visual facts and the unique arena system, all these characteristics let the Empire Craft stand out from the liking products in the web-game industry. As I know, the game is going to load a chatting system, which would certainly make the game more user-friendly. I believe the Empire Craft shall survive in the market competition and enjoy a nice prospect.
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Written by Anonymous on October 14, 2009.
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