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{subhead}Imperator{def}{p}
Review by Hugo Wilkinson
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Well, Epic and Islona have got together and helped Bernie Noel finish
his creation 'Imperator'.
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The story goes that Rome are awaiting a leader who will show the rest of
the world that the Romans mean bussiness! You take control of a single
Unit in this one or two player demo and bassically only have the option
to do battle once, and then your thrown back into the Main Menu. There
is a very interesting looking MAP option (which is un-usable in the
demo), but it would appear that at some point, you'll be able to command
WORLD domination!!! - and lets face it, we ALL want to do that! 8)
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The game is put together brilliantly. The graphics are of a reasonably
high quality and are smooth my girlfriends botty (which is very smooth -
trust me!). What really puts you in the emperors seat though, is the
music and SFX that accompany the game. In the demo it's all done through
the 4 amiga channels, however, I would be surprised if there was some CD
music in the full game. The music that accompanies the intro sequence
and the war game has been made so that it isn't an interference. You
don't really even know the music is there, you just accept it as the
sound of the war - which adds great enjoyability to the game.
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The control is done purely by mouse and highly intuitive. You select
which of your units you want to 'activate', and what you want them to do
in their turn. Then after you've told everyone what to do you press a
button which I can only translate as "GO" but which reads "ALEA JACTA
EST".
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If you just want to WATCH a good battle, then you have THREE automatic
modes on the left of your control panel. They are STAND STILL, MOVE TO
POSITION AND STAND STILL and FIGHT. The last really just pitting the
computer against itself.
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The SFX in the manual mode are a range of background battle roars,
clashing swords, people dieing (dictionary anyone?) and units becoming
histerical and attempting to run away.
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The war field is is all contained within one screen, which is a bit said
as having a scrollable war field would have opened up possibilities for
huge battles, however, it does the job well enough and you get to choose
the level of obstacles in the way, which vary depending on the terrain
you are fighting on (Meadow, Arid Plane, Desert and Rocky land).
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The only thing I would put down about this demo is that it doesn't even
touch the surface of the full game (which will be reviewed next month
with any luck), in terms of your role and general 'point' to the game -
which is to beat everyone silly for 2 and 6!!
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It looks promising, and if you have 15quid spare, I wouldn't hesitate to
go and buy a game worth many MANY hours of entertainment.
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{bold}Available from{nobold}: Aminet:game/demo/ImpDemoUK.lha ({link ftp://de.aminet.net/ftp/aminet/pub/game/demo/ImpDemoUK.lha}Download This{end}){p}
Full game: Epic Marketing 08700 110013 (UK){p}
			  CD for £15 UKpounds.
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{bold}Graphics{nobold}      : 88%{p}
{bold}Sound{nobold}         : 81%{p}
{bold}Playability{nobold}   : 96%{p}
{bold}Lastability{nobold}   : 93%{p}
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{bold}Overall{nobold}       : 89% Just short of an AIO GOLD because its a DEMO!