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Game Introduction:
By your inability to follow the protocols set down many years since, culminating in your insolence at the King's Ball, you have shown yourself to be both unworthy of his most excellent majesty's affections and unreliable as a loyal subject. It is with heavy heart that I send this missive to you. We have no alternative but to place this Exile Notice upon your head and the estate of Mildew. You are banished henceforth from this Kingdom. If you dare return to our green and pleasant land, thyself and thine ill-mannered subjects will be sentenced to death!
Although, initially, 't was our desire to have you horribly Tortured, sending you out into the Wilderness seemsfar more apt.
Since you have the manners of an Ape you will have no trouble creating rude life for your own self amongst the many, varied and uniformly Cruel Beasts that inhabit that cursed land.
You and your insignificant band of Ne'er-Do-Wells, have been exiled to the remote and savage island of Aorta. Using your skills, you may manage to eke out a subsistence standard of living but, from this point forward, you may not count upon any help. In our beneficence we have issued you a portion of your fortune; do with it what you will but never darken our sumptuous door again!
God save The King.
The Manual:
The manual of Beasts & Bumpkins is well written. However, Electronic Arts (E.a.) released this game here in Europe, aswell in Belgium where I live and it is only written in one language namely English. Ofcourse we all know that English is the most spoken language in the entire world and that almost everyone, and i say clearly 'almost', understand plain English.
Still that doesn't mean that foreign languages should be kept in the dark. I find it highly normal when a game comes out in a country where the mother-language isn't English that the manual of that game should also be translated in that mother-language with ofcourse any other languages. Normally manuals are written in 3 or 4 languages, especially in Europe and these should be English, Dutch, French and eventually Spanish/Italien. But here in the B&B (not Beavis & Butthead ;) ) manual there are NO other languages found except English! Well, about 70% of the world population does understand (some) English but the game manufacter should respect the other foreign languages too.
I have a much bigger problem when the Companies translate the entire game in the language where it shall be released. Especially France & Germany are the winners concerning this. No subtitles, they just dub everything ... so goodbye to the speech that features a well known actor or actrice. Anyway dubbing should be forbidden, it is all about chauvinism. I rest my case so lets proceed on the manual.
In the manual, you have also an other little manual inside. It is a basic Windows 95 Reference Card because as you know Win95 is not 1 of the best stabel OS-platforms.
So if you should have any problems when you try to install and/or play this game, just use the advise on the reference card and hopefully the problem will be solved!
If not, you better send E-Mail to their Technical Support team which can be found here under the section 'Firms'. Be sure that you give essential information concerning your computer and the problem.
Other than this are just the basic things that can be found in every manual and this manual ain't no exception. There is a pretty good description of your peasants and what buildings you can build. Ofcourse there is also an in-depth description of so evil-enemies and the various mushrooms, potions and spells.
So, a basic manual like 80% of the game-manuals that exists and in Beasts & Bumpkins you can't really make a very big, highly detailed manual because this game hasn't got really new ideas.
The Game:
Beasts & Bumpkins is a Real-Time Strategy game. Don't get surprised thou with this strange name. I never understood where they got 'Bumpkins' from. Oh well maybe because i'm a Foreinger. Don't know really.
Your goal in B&B is to build up your own village from scratch (from zero, from 0). You will have to use your brain for setting up a strategy in order to complete the 30 levels and to defend yourself from Evil Forces and Creatures.
Zombies, Bee's, Wolves and other Evil Forces want to send you to hell a.s.a.p. and perhaps you want to do something to prevent this.
This game is a build-conquer and survive game. Build up your town, conquer enemy land, kill Evil and the last thing that you need to keep in mind is to survive this Evil place.
With your peasants you can build huts, farms, wells, a bakery and more and more. Kinda like Settlers II which is a briljant Real-Time Strategy game if you ask me.
Ofcourse you can't kill the Evil Forces without a decent army right? Right, so after a few levels you can even create a footman's guild. There you can create soldiers to defend your town and to wipe out Evil.
The enemies are more impressive then any other old RTS (Real-Time Strategy) game and they sure look Angry, Scary and Very Evil.
First of all, something about the graphics. The graphics look nice but not excellent either. Remember this is a strategy game that really does'nt need any high 3d-landscaping. It would be excellent if everything should be in 3dfx but well that ain't the case. So the Graphics look O.k. to me in normal svga.
Your peasants are Menfolk (that can be transformed into soldiers, knights, ...), Womenfolk, Children, Grand-Dads & Grand-Mums that will help you in protecting your village in the beginning of the game. Later you will be able to use Knights, Mages and more lets say, more Stronger and Impressive peasants. A neat thing is this game is that the developers know what 'getting old' really means. Your people won't stay young forever (duh!) and they will get old someday so ... that is pretty useless in protecting your village. Don't count that they will work like harvest something because they walk so slow that doing a walk from the upper left corner of your screen to the lower right one might kill them. The best way to prevent is, is watch how much Seasons are passing by before a peasant gets old. Then just before 'critical' old-age season arrives put your peasant straight to the footman's guild where he will be transformed into a (young and fresh) Soldier. Strange enough, this soldier won't grow rapidly old.
I also noticed that when you are playing that there is absolutely NO In-Game Music at all! No music? Yes, not even Midi.
Midi is as bad as playing without any music at all. I can't really think of a reason of not including some audio-tracks with this game. Isn't it quite obvious that every game needs in-game music while you play them?
Well flight sims doesnt need music but the rest of the game-genres does. Pretty sad from E.A. A huge mistake. The only thing that you can do, and that I did is put the sfx volume bar at 100% and run some Mp3's or an audio cd in your Hi-Fi.
Dont think now for just a second that my Music Volume Bar was at 0% because I can guarantee you that it was at 80%. Wiseguy ;).
For the Sfx (the Soundeffects) they looked good. It wasn't irritating at all without the music and sometimes it even has some fantastic humor in it.
Protect your Womanfolk because they are the Weakest of all. They aren't as strong as your Menfolk so watch them closely. Don't leave them unprotected at all.
Make sure that you have a good Birth Population, if this is not the case well you can forget about completing that Level.
Like in other RTS games you will need to get Treasures and Food in order to keep your village up and running. Beasts & Bumpkins is not an exception in this. You can harvest your own grain, gather your own apples, serving meat and more. But harvesting is quite realistic here. As you might know, Winter isn't a good season for harvesting your grain and other food. So harvest carefully.
Also, watch out for mushrooms and other suspecious things, it could be a trap from Evil.
It took me some hours before I even got in Level 5 or 6. Excellent in Game Duration but the gameplay slacks in a way. I was somehow demotivated to play any longer. I think that Electronic Arts made it a bit too difficult.
Still the opinion I have is that a game like Settlers II is much more impressive and much more funnier to play. Lets say, if you liked Settlers 2, stick with S2. If you want improvement in Real Time strategy, stick with S2.
Personal I think that Settlers 2 is still 1 of the best real time strategy games comparing to Beast & Bumpkins.
However B&B ain't a bad game. No sir. But the Developers could have come up with a little bit more originality.
Conclusion:
Beasts & Bumpkins from Electronic Arts is a Strategy game that is just below average Real Time Strategy. The game lacks in originality because it is always the same idea over and over again. We want someting fresh and new Mister Developers!
There is also No in-game music when you are playing and listening to 1 of your Audio-Cd's really puts the game-atmosphere in danger.
I wonder, why did E.A. make this game too difficult? Beats me.
Still B&B is a very realistic RTS game which has an excellent intro (but that won't let you buy this game) and only reserved to 100% real time strategy players that don't care whether a game is good or bad aslong Real-Time strategy is involved. Some may find this game very amusing, some don't. I was 1 of those that rather stick with an old RTS game than putting Beasts & Bumpkins on the front row.
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Nothing of this Review, animation & logo's included, may be reproduced, stored, saved, transmitted, in any form (electronic, written or otherwise) without the prior permission of the PlayDevil's PC Game Review Creator.
Other Logos & Names are Copyrighted Material of its respectful owners.