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Master of Magic Retrospective (PC)

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Paul Dean takes a look back at SimTex's fantasy 4X game, Master of Magic, in this week's retrospective on Eurogamer.

Quote:

Master of Magic has absolutely no sense of restraint. It's like the game has some deep-seated psychological condition, some terrible case of hedonism. It's like a kleptomaniac spent a week in Games Workshop, came home to you and didn't so much empty their pockets as point excitedly at the van they'd parked outside. It's not just that the game features hundreds of spells and hundreds of units, it's that it's entirely content to let you combine and recombine these in endless permutations, as easily as if they were Lego.

This conjurer's collage allowed for some extraordinary combinations of powers. A week doesn't go by without my reading about some strategy game's scissor/paper/stone dynamics, but Master of Magic had dagger/parchment/moonstone/bony-finger-of-death-and-much-more at its disposal, with even basic troops turning out to be absolutely ruinous in certain situations. The game's deadly Phantom Warriors were a relatively simple unit, but these incorporeal soldiers could completely ignore their opponent's armour and boasted worrying immunities. It was never easy to know what to prepare for, and even your most powerful heroes might remain vulnerable to a particular spell or unit.

Imo, MoM and SC2, my favorite games of all time.

I wonder what the sales on GOG.com are like after every one of these "retrospectives" are printed.

Too bad I have already spent a forturne on games this month. This is now on my wishlist, though.

Loved this game! Age of Wonders is very inspired from this, both of them occupied too much of my time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by docfate (Post 2114292)

I wonder what the sales on GOG.com are like after every one of these "retrospectives" are printed.

Too bad I have already spent a forturne on games this month. This is now on my wishlist, though.

I'm sure these articles and the reinstall articles in PC Gamer don't hurt the bottom line over at GoG.com.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zurik (Post 2114301)

Loved this game! Age of Wonders is very inspired from this, both of them occupied too much of my time.

I loved age of wonders but as soon as they started focusing more on the magic and mage towers ect... lost its charm.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Emabulator (Post 2114312)

I'm sure these articles and the reinstall articles in PC Gamer don't hurt the bottom line over at GoG.com.

You would think they would hire a few freelancer writers to write stories for them. Post a few postmortems, a "Let's play!" here and there and watch the readers get interested.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lockwoodx (Post 2114313)

I loved age of wonders but as soon as they started focusing more on the magic and mage towers ect... lost its charm.

I agree wholeheartedly. Always felt like I was commanding from across the world.

I play this game to this day in DOSbox time to time. It's one of my all time favorites, easily responsible for bad grades in high school.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lockwoodx (Post 2114290)

Warlords 2 > MoM

While I loved Warlords 2 (and preferred it for a quick session), it was no where near as deep, complex or complete as MoM. The combat in MoM was especially good.

This, Warlords 2 and MoO (1 and 2 but definitely not 3) stole countless hours from me growing up.

I bought this on gog.com awhile back just for the convenience of it. I had been using DOSbox, but for 5 bucks, I no longer need to manage it myself. And thus I am able to fire up a game easily, no matter where I am at.