Strategy fans should take a look at this Cossacks expansion.
When it was released last year Cossacks didn’t cause much of a stir, but the quality of the original game has impressed many with a growing legion of fans getting into one of the most absorbing post renaissance strategy games to ever hit the PC. This expansion pack breathes even more life into what is essentially a very absorbing and deep eighteenth century wargame.
The visuals perhaps look a little dated when compared to new titles now, but the basic graphic approach is now over a year ago. That said for a strategy game the graphics are hardly an issue and indeed the graphics are still ahead of some of Cossacks’ contemporaries.
The pack gives you two new nations to campaign as, Denmark and Bavaria, and there are six new single player missions and six historically based battles. Some of these like the English Civil War might be vaguely familiar, but the rest are obscure, like the battle of Battle of Hohenfiedberg. That said all are challenging and there is even a new condition, you can start mission in peacetime, so you can develop your military in peace for a while. This is great if you really want to build up a formidable force without being hassled.
The expansion pack also throws in a map and mission editor which is possible one of the easiest example of such software to have seen the light of day. These both ensure that once you have satisfied yourself with the scripted campaign that you can then add your own missions and keep on playing. The maps on offer are also even more massive than those in the original game, making for quite possible the biggest real time strategy game arenas ever made. This is great for four player multiplayer battles as you have room to expand, develop and ultimately crush your enemies.
The inclusion of bigger maps does stress your hardware a bit though and certainly if you have the minimum specification machine (a humble Pentium II 233 with 32 Meg you will find the gameplay slows to a crawl). Anything over a PIII733 with 128 MB of Ram is more than satisfactory though.
Cossacks Art of War sees you overseeing the rather complex social and economic systems required to field an army during the 18th Century and with the interface improvements (units don’t get captured unfairly anymore) as well as the new missions, this pack makes for great value if you enjoyed the original game. If you are curious and have finished a game like Age of Empires you should consider getting the expansion pack and the full game, as Cossacks is a little bit special.
Graphics (7) It’s still basic, but gets the job done.
Sounds (7) – Some quality mood setting stuff here.
Gameplay (8) – Strategy fans should definitely take a look at the depth of gameplay here.
Replay Value (8) – There’s enough here to keep players going for a while.
Overall: 7,5/10
AOE fans should also take a look at this quality title.
INFORMATION ABOUT THIS CONTENT:
Originally posted: mgon.com (LINK) (ARCHIVED-1) (ARCHIVED-2)
Date of publish: 07.03.2002
Author: Steve
Language of publish: english