Majesty Gold

List Price: $9.99 Discount Price: $9.89

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

Great game!!! [Posted on 2007-03-20]
I've played this game since it first came out before the northern expansion, bought it again with it, bought it again gold edition. Gold is absolutely the best because once you load it, you never need the disc to start it. It's great whenever you want a quick game 15mins.-an hour or so. Now my kids are old enough to play it and enjoy it, too. Deal with the demon does not have a demon in it. I've never noticed if any of the charachters are topless, I guess that you would have to really be looking for that to find it...the charachters are quite small you would need a magnifier to notice I think. My son could play this easily at 6. I think if your child were interested he/she could play this as young as 4 or whenever they can start reading, or with help. You can network this and play as a family which is fun and safer than the internet. But for adults that want to unwind this sure beats out solitaire or minesweeper!!!

Very challenging [Posted on 2007-05-18]
this game is awesome it adds a whole new challenge to the majesty game

A good diversion. [Posted on 2007-07-01]
Majesty is, as its title indicates, a kingdom building sim. In other words, you build your kingdom, and it looks after itself (if you've done your job properly). You cannot direct your population to attack foes, and you cannot micromanage the behaviour of your units. But you can indirectly influence your population by offering incentives for exploration and offering bounties on enemies. In some ways, this game is like a combination of a Sim City game with a fantasy rts.

The visuals for Majesty are beautiful. While it is true that the characters on the screen are disproportionately large in comparison to the buildings, the game nonetheless presents a playful, alive, high fantasy game world. This is one of those games where you're very grateful it was built in 2D, rather than 3D.

However, the fact that you cannot directly control your subjects ends up being not only one of Majesty's strengths, but also its biggest drawback. As your kingdom grows, you will find yourself having to quickly whip back and forth across the map, offering bounty rewards for enemies and checking on the status of building projects. Thus, when you are actually playing the game, it is impossible to actually appreciate the beauty of the visuals and the subtle aspects of one-on-one warfare. There simply isn't time.

All in all, Majesty is a wonderful diversion, and worth more money than it currently costs.

Still Great after All These Years [Posted on 2008-01-20]
This review was written by my son, James Shea

The basic concept behind Majesty is that the player is a king or queen in a medieval fantasy country called Ardania. This kingdom is inhabited by all the adventurers and monsters one would expect from such a setting. As monarch, the player cannot directly intervene in most cases; compare this to, say, Warcraft, where everyone is under the player's direct control. The monarch in Majesty can place building plans (which peasants will automatically redirect towards constructing), cast spells (if the appropriate facilities are constructed), hire heroes, purchase upgrades to buildings and place reward flags. This is the extent of your power; you cannot directly tell a warrior to go destroy a troll attacking your town, but you can place a bounty on its head so that heroes will want to go get it. This is the key difference from Warcraft; the game is half about strategy and half about convincing your kingdom's heroes that they should help you.

The main focus of the game is the heroes, of course; by building various types of guilds, you can recruit a certain number of heroes (usually four per guild). These guilds include warrior's guilds, ranger's guilds, wizard's guilds, and temples of various gods and goddesses. Different heroes have different temperaments and abilities. Rogues are greedy and will pilfer from enemy buildings and lairs more than they'll destroy them, but are easily influenced by reward flags. Rangers spend most of their time exploring, and act as the eyes and ears of the sovereign. Wizards can cast powerful spells, but are fragile. Gnomes aren't good fighters, but are cheap and will help the peasants build things around the settlement. Certain groups (priests and non-human races, primarily) do not like certain other groups. Elves, gnomes, and dwarves all dislike each other, so you can only have one group in your kingdom at a time. Temples have rivalries and friends - the temples of Law and Good like each other, but dislike Chaos and Evil (and vice versa). The same goes for the temples of the Sun and Moon Gods - you can only have one of either at a time.

Other buildings are usually meant to either defend your settlement (namely, the guardhouses that are staffed by city watchmen and can shoot arrows at enemies) or support your hero population. Of the second group, there are blacksmiths (that upgrade weapons), marketplaces (that sell various magic items), tournament grounds (for training), and various types of inns and relaxation areas. Heroes earn money through adventuring or by collecting the bounties you set for them; they spend this money on upgrades for themselves. The hero AI is pretty smart, and heroes most of the time will know when to purchase new things, when to use their special abilities, when to use healing potions, and when to flee from battle. Heroes also level up through combat, so it's to your benefit to try to keep your heroes alive (so that they can deal with the stronger threats plaguing your kingdom). Enemies also come in various sizes, as well, from the low-level giant rats to various types of goblins and ratmen to stronger foes like medusas and hydras. Their level belies their rarity; rats will come through sewer vents to attack your town and cannot be stopped (the sewer is a necessary part for a growing city) but medusas will only come into your kingdom once in a rare while.

The graphics in this game - done in a 2D cartoonish style without being weirdly proportioned - still look pretty good today. Unlike a lot of old games, it looks like "well-drawn 2d" instead of "blocky 3d", which works to its advantage. Heroes and monsters all have portraits (one per class or monster type, not individual portraits) that are well illustrated. The music is good, though the same music gets used a lot. The voice acting is extensive, with a different voice for every type of hero, and a quip for every situation (the things they say are helpful with running the kingdom, to serve as a quick indication of what they're doing). There is also a royal advisor who assists you during play who has a fairly humorous Sean Connery accent.

Even though this game is old, it runs fine on Vista when acquired through GamersGate. The gold edition also includes the expansion, which adds some new buildings and many new missions. This is one game that is still just as good now as it was when it came out.

Rating: 9/10.

Technical Comment [Posted on 2008-04-07]
WinXP users with DirectX9 and nVidia viedo cards that can't see the beginning movie after install making the game unplayable - Start Menu, Run, DXDiag, Display Tab, Disable DirectDraw Acceleration. (Remember to turn it back on after you are done.) ***Leave everyone a comment if it also occurs in Vista and is a vaild fix too.***

Currently additional downloadable quests from the manufacturer are not supported on the 'Gold' edition:
- The Wrath of Krolm
- The Balance of Twlight

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