War and Peace Demo

Seeing as the Earth is quite big compared to how small and insignificant human beings are, one might believe that there’s enough land for everyone to call his own. Great leaders are not born out of the wish to share, however, which is why war and conquest are not going away just yet. On the other hand, you could just get with the popular crowd and start doing it yourself, albeit in a virtual environment and with only your spare time to kill.

War and Peace is a real-time strategy game that takes things to an entirely new level when it comes to the map and the territory that’s up for grabs. Hence, the entire world is represented inside the game, complete with every continent and a selection of important countries and cities, all of which can be conquered and pillaged if you so desire, as long as your army is big enough.

There’s not much of a central plot point to talk about, but there are plenty of scenarios for you try out, both historical and fictional. These scenarios take place in different centuries, so the geopolitical map might fluctuate a bit, but the idea is still the same. You can personalize the victory conditions, although they are mostly related to how many cities you have to conquer before you are declared victorious.

Unfortunately, the game does not handle the pressure too well and the gameplay may prove to be way too annoying to be worth the trouble, especially since it takes a while to get used to it. The units move chaotically on the map and it is difficult to tell who is who out there, while the commands reserved for important functions are sometimes too difficult to reach. Reading the manual and consulting the tutorial can help, but the mechanics are too rusty to be worth the lost time.

The interface is but half of the problem, however, since the entire game looks a tad too awful to make things out from the closest zoom level. Once you zoom out, things get clearer, but it becomes more difficult to select the units and direct them properly on the battlefield. Speaking of which, the battles are crude and uneventful, given the fact that the troops are not three dimensional and skirmishes usually look like the wind is knocking down paper cutouts.

In the end, providing the players with the map of the entire world is a very bold move and an attractive prospect, but War and Peace fails to make the experience worthwhile as well. Hence, the huge map is not of any use, especially since the gameplay makes it very difficult to enjoy the experience even for a short while.