Reviewed by: Fivethumbs
Developer: JoWood
Publisher: Deep Silver

JoWood (developers of the Gothic series) bring the Europe in the 1400's to life with the second incarnation of 'The Guild', imaginatively titled 'The Guild 2'.

You have choice of starting templates for your character - Patron, Craftsperson, Scholar or Rogue - each of which can be tailored to your own style of play by spending experience points on your skills. Then you pick a profession be it a baker, carpenter, alchemist, thief etc. A thief would find it easier to increase their skill at combat while an alchemist would be better at mental skills. This choice controls what your starting business will be.

The action takes place in a real time 3D isometric environment and I have to say I thought this all looked rather nice at the default graphics settings. Each map has at least two towns plus the main road connecting them. You can see all the other computer controlled players and mud shovelling surfs going about doing they're thing, tending fields mining minerals, gathering herbs .. you get the idea!

Zoom out for an overview of a large area or zoom in for enough detail to see rings, weapons and necklaces on an individual persons. At the beginning you instruct the workers in your business to make items to be sold at the market, but be mindful that prices can differ between the towns on your map. Making the right things and selling at the right time gets you a profit that can be spent upgrading your business or your house. Upgrading your property allows you to access more options for that property. A less honest character can set about extorting money with threats or robbing carts on the road or on the flipside Priests hold sermons and gather donations.

This game is all about dynasties; eventually your first character will die of old age, disease or the actions of other dynasties. Hopefully by that point you will have been married had children and they will take over your empire. Interaction between characters is very much like 'The Sims' style of play - find someone you like and send them a gift, read them a poem, talk to them, give them a hug or even take them for a shared bath if your getting on well enough! Eventually they will fall in love with you and one can then get married. Your partner now becomes a character you can control directly giving you access to different abilities if they are of a different profession to your first. You can have direct control of up to three people at any one time.

So now you've taken care of profits and an heir it's time to crush the competing dynasties. You can engage them in combat either directly or through the use of your minions but beware this could lead to you being charged, judged, sentenced and hanged fairly quickly so some political influence is needed. Each town has a council with a number of positions you can be elected to. Control of a political position can allow you to change the laws of the town, set tax rates, bring charges against someone or grant you immunity to being charged. To win an election you must get the most votes so some
schmoozing is required! This is done in much the same way as attracting a partner but you can also host parties, give bribes and other bits of political skulduggery. Small towns have small councils with five people, larger cities naturally have larger councils.

Your henchmen, recruited through your personnel residence, can perform several actions for you. They act as bodyguards, can spy on opponents or carry out many other actions as the game progresses. Every henchman or character can be equipped with weapons and armour.

Your directly controlled characters can also be equipped with jewellery, fine clothes and wear perfumes to improve your popularity and standing. You can throw stink bombs at people to make it harder for them to maintain their own popularity! Every item you can use in the game is made at one of the businesses and if you don't make it yourself then you simply buy it from the market.

Performing actions, getting married, being elected all earn you experience points which you can spend to improve your characters skills. Get enough experience and you level up, the benefits of this being that you can apply for a new 'title'. Titles also control your actions and oddly what buildings you can get into. Additionally, every few levels you get a new special ability.

The whole game plays in a sandbox mode where you can pick the map, set the number of opponents, decide the victory conditions and difficulty level. Sets of tutorials introduce you to the basics but after that you’re on your own - there is real depth to this game and you can go about it in many different ways.

Now the bad bits; Everything is under your control so even with one character and one business things get busy fast. Sending your carts to market becomes quite a chore and missing the right time to sell can cost you severely, though Businesses can be automated but they aren't run very well that way. Trying to talk to specific people can be quite difficult if they are busy themselves, as your character doesn't seem to path very well - I found I would slow the game right down, set up a series of commands and then turn the speed right up until they were carried out. Getting messages that your sweetheart was feeling neglected while they were in a building you couldn’t enter was also annoying. This game takes a long time to play and if you only have a couple of hours a night to spare I wouldn't recommend you buy it. As time goes on, the towns get bigger and there are more people running about causing the game engine to slow down making it even more frustrating. Oh, and there is no auto patch facility which in my opinion is a must have.

There is a multiplayer mode, but at the time of reviewing we hadn't tested this. The manual mentions that you can make alliances, so that could be fun.

If micro management is your thing, you have twelve hours a day to kill and you fancy a bit of the Sims with axes then this is the game for you.

Buy 'The Guild 2' from GAME and help to support the Alfies!

Minimum Spec	Reviewed on
Pentium 1.8GHz or Equivalent 128 MB Graphics Card DVDROM Drive 3Gb Hard Disk Space	3.4GHz RAM 256Mb Nvidia 6800 Full Install