Preview by: Troy S. Goodfellow

2000’s Majesty from Cyberlore Studios was one of the great dead ends in game design history. It took the combat and resource collection of a traditional real time strategy game and married it to the indirect control, pushing and nudging of a standard city builder. You could influence your soldiers to kill your enemies with the right financial incentives, but, for the most part, you couldn’t make them do it.

Only now do we get a sequel for the game, from a Russian studio and a Swedish publisher. Judging from the preview build, which was a workable Alpha, most of the mechanics that made Majesty so popular are still in place. A lot of work remains, however, before it has any chance of inspiring more than the sweet nostalgic feelings of the original -- there was simply a lot of features turned off in the preview build so we'll have to wait and see how it turns out this summer.

Set in a fantasy world, Majesty 2: The Fantasy Kindom Sim won’t win many awards for originality, but clichés are clichés for a reason, right? You rule a kingdom under attack from monsters and you need to summon adventurers to clear the surrounding terrain. Warriors, rangers, rogues, wizards and clerics make up the human population and you need to make sure they have the best weapons and magic supplies that their loot can buy.

The preview build has about a half-dozen single player missions, with no free play skirmish mode or multiplayer enabled. Each mission follows the same pattern – survive an initial onslaught by rats or wolves (or, in one mission, a dragon) and then expand your influence across the map. If you want one of your units to explore an area or take out an enemy lair, you need to put a bounty on that task. The victorious heroes level up and then spend the reward money in your local shops and taverns. The fantasy kingdom of Majesty is a company town, where you cycle money through your heroes and then back into your own pocket.