Stronghold

The Good
Graphics (9/10): Oh man, when I first turned this gem in, the introduction just wowed me. The portraits of your different units are simply amazing, and the detail on the buildings and units is so nice that for the time it was released I really couldn't find any game that looks better.

Sound (6/10): Mostly repetitive, the music while looking at characters you control or enemy characters is suiting and is good to the ears, but there is no other music. The sound effects can be comical in battle, and most of what you hear will be the crashing sounds while structures are being built. Although, none of this used to bother me in the least, I guess I'm just spoiled. =P

Gameplay (8/10): Wonderfully fun getting your newer buildings and upgrading your old ones, but when your empires get very large it is VERY difficult to keep track of every single square of land. Battle can also be a pain, and controlling your armies takes a bit of practice.

Overall (9/10):The game just has a certain draw to it and you never really quite feel you've beaten it. Every game a different but always graphically gorgeous experience, this is one I'll still go to on occasion for years to come. An absolute must-try for anyone who thought (or still think) that civilization was fun.

The Bad
Well I sort of covered most of that already.

The Bottom Line
Hehe, that too.

The Good
I loved the combination of a real time strategy with classic dungeons and dragons gaming. It draws in any d&d fan.

The Bad
this one is a bit difficult to begin, and if you're not quick enough, you can find yourself swarmed with enemy forces. This leads sometimes to a frantic pace that is difficult to control.

The Bottom Line
Stronghold is truly the world builders dungeons and dragons.

The Good
This game played wonderful on my P75 five years ago and plays just as well on my 500mhz machine now. This can be a simple game to start and slowly get more challenging. Does not get too frustrating like some of the more complicated strategy games.

The Bad
Sometimes I get really engrossed in the graphics and forget I have a whole kingdom to worry about :)

The Bottom Line
If you were to mix up Populous, Power Monger, Civilization, and Sim City. Then throw in some classic SSI RPG elements. You would come up with Stronghold.

The Good
The game works mostly like any Sim City clone. You have a kingdom, you make houses for people to live in, crops make you gain food, other buildings gives you money and etc... so the main element is you trying to keep a balance of buildings while you increasing your kingdom. There's really no challenge in the game, only patience, as you wait for buildings to finish and for money to pour in. The game really needs a speedup option. Another small element is combat, there's creatures around in the land which will attack you, and you can attack them by (in a very annoying and slow way) selecting units to attack the enemies.

The Bad
The game's just plain boring. And the graphics just look weird... it's a mix of simple 3d terrain and 2d sprites which does not blend in well. And the game is D&D, which I just don't understand, can you imagine seeing a Sim City game with D&D rules? Well, this game is officially D&D, when you make a leader you get to roll dices to get stats (something I've always hated in D&D games, every player I see rolling a character presses "reroll" a million times, why not have a system where the player allocates points? ... I hate D&D), of course I have no freaking idea what the stats mean in the game. Perhaps your population fights better with more strength, but I'll be damned if I can guess what intelligence, wisdom and such do. So the D&D rules could have just been taken out, I pray that the combat engine isn't based on D&D rules as that would make it totally random (the fighting in D&D isn't exactly known for being advanced). The sounds are also insanely annoying, the ambience sounds consists of 4 short sounds being looped randomnly and it sounds so annoying, the few odd places there's music it's bad.

The Bottom Line
The game's just plain horrible. It's boring, and the only challenge is patience. Steer away from this one unless you love Sim City-alike games to death.

The Good
I is ahead of its time, it plays like a dream. I could play this for hours.

The Bad
NOTHING!!!!

The Bottom Line
The BEST.....;