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Stronghold Legends (PC CD) | 
| From: Take 2 Interactive
Category: Video Games
List Price: £19.99
Buy New: £7.56
You Save: £12.43 (62%)
New (8) Used (2) from £4.73
Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 4176
Platform: Windows Xp
Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
ESRB: Teen
Media: Video Game
Age: 11 - 18 years
Operating System: Windows
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: STRONGHOLDLEG
UPC: 710425219849
EAN: 0710425219849
ASIN: B000HHEIK4
Release Date: October 13, 2006
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review:
In a nutshell:
Become king of your very own castle with the latest in the popular series of castle building sims, now with added vampires and in full 3D! The lowdown:
The thought of building your very own castle is one of the key pleasures of a young man's life, whether it's made out of sand, tree branches or LEGO bricks. The Stronghold series has been all about channelling those childhood dreams into structured gameplay, but this latest version has just as much emphasis on real-time combat as it does castle building. This is a bit of a shame as it's the castle construction that was the unique and interesting element and that, along with resource management, has now been very much downgraded. The combat which is the new focus is shallow, but still enjoyable, and there are enough unusual units and features to keep strategy fans interested. Most exciting moment:
This is the first time the Stronghold series has ever used real 3D graphics and although some of the human characters seem a bit blocky the actual castles look great and the camera view allows you to zoom in on a surprising amount of detail on all the buildings and walls. Since you ask:
The word Legends refers to the fact that you get to control mythical figures such as King Arthur and Vlad the Impaler through their own story campaigns. There are also a lot more magical units to employ in battle, including dragons, dwarves, giants and werewolves. The bottom line:
It doesn't play to its strengths, but it's still the best castle builder on the block. -HARRISON DENT
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 Hoorah January 4, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Damned good. Welcome back short nights sleep!!. Familiar format plus lots of extras - enough said surely? Won't be sharing the same shelfspace as the disappointing and ultimately unplayed Stronghold 2. Although that said this purchase did coincide with a new computer so maybe time to dust off S2 and give it a second chance - presuming all the patches are now sorted!
Awesome game! January 1, 2007
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
This is everything that I expected from the latest of the stronghold series, it really is great.
- The graphics are irrelevant cos you're so zoomed out to control the action you can't appreciate them unless you want to. The overhead view is helpful for planning, but then you can't appreciate the graphics at all.
- The campaign is very good, each mission usually starts off fine then things go wrong, and you really have to use your coping skills and you're brain to keep things ticking over. You do find a rhythm, and then the game sets about destroying it! It's really challenging and fun.
- The skirmish trail is a really great idea, for challenging you without the necessary storyline to produce difficult and very difficult scenarios.
- I'm not convinced that the races are balanced properly, with King Arthur having many major advantages over the over two races, while the other two rely on disruption techniques to combat this effect.
- The only slight shortcoming from a strategy perpective is a lack of approriate shortcut keys.
A lot of effort obviously went into planning each of the missions in this game to make them all do-able, but not easy.
I think this is one of the best strategy games I've played and the resource/city-management is the best I've ever seen, within a pre-dominantly war-type game.
Pleasantly suprised! December 3, 2006
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
First of all I really enjoyed all of the previous Stronghold games, and thus was looking forward to Legends. However, upon first playing was a bit confused as to why I could not torture rack my peasants and where were all the new buildings. Turns out this game strayed a bit away from the whole castle building strategy/sim I had grown quite fond of. What I received instead was a very entertaining RTS game. Most of the new rts games have strayed from the buildings aspect of the genre, (and are more unit based). Such as WarcraftIII and Battle for Middle Earth for example, and rely heavily on your Hero units. Stonghold Legends however not only has hero type units such as King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table with the help of Merlin, ( each with their own unique superpower) Sir Percival's Holy Blast is fantastic for taking out the oppostions advancing troops, it also has a deep economic system when compared to other RTS games. The good faction should be a perfect fit
for those RTS fans that enjoy using such Hero units against human opponents in online scrimages. Also, every faction can summon their own unique Dragon to wreak havoc on their enemies castle. The Ice Dragon is most enjoyable. But, FireFly has also left their deep castle building and economic system mostly intact. From gathering resources for building, planting crops for food, gaining honor and glory from battles and brewing ale, to taxing your peasants for gold. So there is virtually something for everyone who is a fan of RTS games as well as Castle building sim fans. With 3 dif factions to choose from, Including: Evil with werewolves and vampires to the Ice faction complete with frost Giants and an Ice Queen, to the Good faction with King Arthur and his knights. So, if you like castle/city type sims as well as traditional mass army RTS games I highly recomend this gem of a game. The only downfall of this game is its limit of 4 player online multiplayer and 2 map sizes, large or small (although the handy map editor can help). With all of the other established Rts franchises out just being the same thing as the last with better graphics and sound this was a refreshing game.
Stronghold Legends Review December 1, 2006
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
After the relative disappointment that was Stronghold 2, the developers, Firefly Studios, are back on top form with Stronghold Legends. It's an excellent game that should appeal to all RTS fans not put off by talk of legends and magic and dragons. As one who eventually gave up on the Warcraft series because of its over-fondness for spells, I was more than a little dubious myself. But the new unit types are blended well into the familiar (to some) Stronghold game play. The basic premise is still the same: get your defences in order, build up the economy, feed and tax the populace, accumulate glory and honour, recruit troops and get out there and attack. The striking difference is in the calibre of enemy troop types that try to get through or over your barricades. The old favourites are still there, from spearmen, archers and macemen to pikemen, swordsmen and knights, but they are now joined by such as frost giants, wolves, witches, demons and hell hounds, not forgetting those dragons. The sense of humour percolating throughout the game is as dry as it ever was.
Played out on a 3D campus that affords excellent camera angles and views, you have a choice of three single-player campaigns (King Arthur, Ice or Evil), and three separate Legends Trails (four if you have the Special Edition). You will play as either the Good (King Arthur), the Bad (Count Vlad Dracul) or the Ugly (Prince Dietrich of Bern), each faction having its own unique blend of troops, terrain, buildings, siege equipment, food sources, strengths and weaknesses. You can also set up your own custom skirmishes on any one of 24 user maps for between two and four players, fighting against a choice of six AI opponents like Mordred, Lancelot and Siegfried. There's also a multiplayer option that, although I haven't experience of it, I am advised is far more stable than its Stronghold Two predecessor. Firefly has provided its usual map editor with which you can design professional-looking maps to battle over. There's an excellent tutorial, manual and help section. The controls are well laid out and easy to master.
You get a lot of game for your money. I have currently had it for just over a month, played for a total of 74 hours (according to the in-game stats screen) and completed just two of the Legends Trails and only nine missions of the King Arthur campaign. Admittedly, I'm a very slow, calculating player, and the game speed can be adjusted at will, but that's value for money in my book.
I have a few quibbles. There are only three types of tower available, no drawbridges to span your moats and those moats continue to be laid down in blocks rather than dug out by your troops. But they don't detract from the overall game play and (for those familiar with Stronghold Two) you thankfully no longer have gong, rats or criminals to contend with.
If you are still unsure of your relish for dragon harpoons, ice mirrors, stake hurlers, werewolf launchers, and the like, why not give the demo a whirl? It's readily available for download on the internet, but, at 342 MB in size, those with dial-up connections will be glad that some game magazines have the demo on disk. And if you do get hold of the demo, select any unit, but especially a dragon, press the keys Q, W, E and R together and enjoy the ride. Phew!
Great though i have not played it in depth November 30, 2006
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
Stronghold Legends looks to be an amazing game. Though I have only played the demo, I was extremly satisfied with it. If you are a fan of the series you should definatley consider adding this game to your library.
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