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review :: the guild 2

The Guild 2

Reviewed on: PC
Available on: PC

There’s none of that urge to sit down and play until you’ve finished it. That seems to be the problem with this game ... lots of great ideas but nothing very stimulating.

Players: 1 Player
Genre:
Release: 2007-11-03
Developer: 4HEAD Studios
Distributor: Auran

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I’m really not sure how I should start this. Should I state right out that I didn’t like this game? Got extremely frustrated with the brilliant potential being blighted by the overly complicated interface? Was ready to give up before I’d barely begun?

As a rule, most simulation games (with the exception of Roller Coaster Tycoon which I haven’t finished yet still have every intention to do so) don’t hold my attention for more than a week – The Sims included. I play games to experience things that are unrealistic. I don’t need games to keep telling me how hard things are in real life. I know that already.





That being said, I was looking forward to seeing how well The Sims could be immersed into the Medieval Era with a touch of the RPG. Simulated daily life in historical periods as opposed to basic Strategy or City Building games has the makings of a successful genre if pulled off well. The problem with The Guild 2 was that it wasn’t pulled off very well, although it did get close.

The problem lay with the mechanics – too much micromanagement can kill a game and it certainly didn’t do this game any good. You could compare this game to Cultures only it takes much longer to figure out what’s what. But let’s go to the very best place to start…

You begin with… no, sorry. Don’t go jumping into things just yet. Let’s look at the tutorials first. My main point with these is the persistence in sticking to the old style, let’s do things one at a time, including camera controls. You can’t skip tutorials to get to what you want to do, once you begin you need to finish before you can move to the next one.

Once the tutorials are complete, you can create your own dynasty for your own game. The people you can make are actually quite cute – and the way you make them can be compared to the Sims editors, choosing faces, clothing, and the like as well as their starting profession (one of four). They’re quite cute, giving you a bit of incentive to look after them and help their widdle dynasty grow up.





This game has heaps of really cool concepts but to get more gamers interested in this requires a revamped system that’ll make these ideas a little more accessible. You find that it’s not really complex at all, just complicated. And it can really frustrate those trying to get into the meat of it. You find yourself fiddling around too much simply to get some basic supplies to your manufacturing base, multiple times. Just finding your main character is hard enough sometimes, let alone other characters that constantly move around. And once you click on them, you have to find your main character again! Frustrating, to say the least.

Though once I got into it, it ended up quite addictive, just building up your rep, increasing your profits and upgrading your house. It took a while and though addictive, after an hour or two you realise that the excitement factor isn’t s high as you’d think it’d be. The economy system in this game is rather well implemented and can hold your attention for perhaps half an hour but really, the tinkling of coins is only so exhilarating for so long. I mean, Medieval Sims is awesome and all but putting in all these realistic boundaries limits what you can do with it.

Out of the four professions you can take, the most amusing is the Robber/Thief one where you can use your considerable skills to rob your way into the higher ranks of the town, swindling your way through friends and enemies alike. I encountered these possibilities from the other side, however. I got threatened in quite an amusing way. My house needed “protection money” or else it might get a little “too hot” in town and maybe, just maybe, burn to a crisp. I was surprised to find my house on fire the next day. But the entire town helping to put the fire out was a nice touch that gave me warm and fuzzies, even though quite a few were “Enemies” who literally spat their words at me in the street.





There’s a few amusing sidenotes in this game – you can tell where the developers had a little fun. Especially when you’re finding suitable spouses for your main character. I think that was what I did most of the time… are you surprised? You take a look at the men in your town and, provided they aren’t married, go for it. With lines like “Would you like to take a walk with me?” you can flirt your way to the level where you might snag yourself a marriage. Though, there are different personality “types” the shop keepers like it honest and varied, scholars appreciated a surprise or two but nothing big and you have to keep things interesting for the morally uninclined. It can be a bit of chore, getting things right, trying to push the right buttons so you can get to a level where they’ll marry you. Because this entire game is centred on the Dynasty – it’s not very much help if you haven’t got any kids to carry on the family name. And to have kids, you need that second half to disappear into your homestead with and conveniently “Spend the night together”.

That seems to be the problem with this game – lots of great ideas but nothing very stimulating. It comes with a couple of campaign modes but not a lot of push. There’s none of that… urge to sit down and play until you’ve finished it. Maybe I just missed it but the amount of time it took to just understand how they wanted me to work the game, let alone play it really detracted from this game’s “Fun Factor”.

Final Verdict

Lots of great ideas that eventually boil down to being limited by the dull and repetitive gameplay implemented into this game. What could have been a really fun and popular Medieval Sim ended up being let down by its mechanics. A bit more time and thought would’ve let this potential become a real hit.

Pros
Amusing in-game dialog, cute characters, decent sandbox play.
Cons
Overly complicated gameplay, too many “real life” limitations, jumping through hoops a lot of the time. Too much micromanagement.

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