Zuxxez and Reality Pump have done a wonderful job or refining this latest version of the game, adding touch-ups to the entire interface, new models for all the RPG characters you can play and 2D art for most of the spells, items and skills you can use from the toolbar. The world in which the game takes place in is very visually appealing, providing a variety of terrain and objects, moving trees, rivers, mountains, grasslands, burned out villages, mythical and mysterious areas, castles and lots of other interesting locations and visual touches. The world and characters are 3D and can be viewed from up high or in close and the view can be rotated and panned to your personal tastes. The world was built using the an enhanced version of Reality Pump's Earth 2150 game engine, though looking at it wouldn't give you the impression that it's even the same engine. Reality Pump has done a wonderful job of transforming, bending and shaping the engine to do what it needs to do for this game. From a visual standpoint the game is almost perfect and on faster machines you'll rarely ever feel the game chug down or stop at all - the only time the game even briefly pauses during the action is when it's auto saving.

Finally it should be noted that the game will ship with a built-in map editor that allows players to build campaign, skirmish and RPG maps. I did tinker with the map editor a tiny bit, and my experience with it was positive, though my lack of skill with the tool produced nothing of value. The nice thing about the map editor is that will allow players to create new RPG campaigns - something I was afraid it wouldn't let you do. Looking under the hood briefly, I can safely say that creating a simple map isn't brain surgery, though creating something truly spectacular is going to require a bit of study on the part of would-be map builders. Overall the map editor is a nice edition to the game, and hopefully players that pick up this game will use it to create some extra fun that everyone can enjoy. I'm not sure how robust the tools in the editor are, but here's to hoping that the developers plan to offer some decent documentation for this part of the game.

So what's the final verdict on KnightShift? Zuxxez and Realty Pump are delivering exactly what they promised many moons ago - a real-time strategy game with lots of humor, action and -- most important of all-- deeply seated role-playing elements. They have done a great job of intertwining all of these elements to make a truly addictive and fun gaming experience. KnightShift needs a little bit of polish, and a deeper storyline wouldn't hurt, but the gameplay is great enough to make you forget about its minor shortcomings. An upcoming beta test will soon give a select few a chance to see why this game is so great, and hopefully the feedback from that test will be implemented into the game to make it even better than it is. In the interim, I'm going enjoy the beta and look forward to playing the full version when it is released later this year.