Defender of the Crown

Title		Defender of the Crown
Game Type	Adventure
Publisher	Cinemaware
Players		1
Compatibility	OCS/ECS KS1.3
HD Installable	No
Submission	Keith Scroggins (kws@radix.net)

Review
 Its the time of Robin Hood!  The Normans vs the Saxons.  You play
as one of a choice of 4 Saxons, each with their strong points and
weaknesses.  Your quest is to conquer all of Britain.  The computer
controls 2 other Saxons and 3 Normans.  While the Normans rarely attack
each other, the same is not true for the Saxons, watch your back, your own
allies will turn on you!

 The game has a few different play elements.  The basic object is
to take over all of Britain by capturing the home castle of each leader.
Once you capture the home castle, all of the territory owned by that
person comes under your control.  But to get that far you have to conquer
the territories on the way.  You do this with a campaign army made up of
soldiers, knights, and catapults.  Besides fighting other armies, and
taking castles, players also conduct raids and participate in jousts.  In
a joust, you can either play for fame or land.  In a raid, you can raid a
rivals castle for gold, or if the chance arrives, rescue a saxon maiden
who will become your wife.  All game control is done by using the mouse,
no joystick is used at all.

Most of the control of the game takes place at a screen showing a map of
Britain with the different territories and castles shown.  When an attack
takes place, another screen is shown where your soldiers and the opposing
army are shown fighting, and you are given a few different options for
attack style.  For a joust, you are placed at a screen where the other
rider is coming toward you and the player must place the lance in the
right place to knock the challenger off the horse.  And finally for the
raid, a player is pitted against an enemy in a side scrolling sword fight
to either get the gold, or save the kidnapped lady.  As with all other
CinemaWare games, beautifully drawn intermissions and cut scenes are
included.

 This is a very early Amiga game, one that many retailers used to show
off the system.  For the time the hand drawn graphics are beautiful.  This
is one of my favorite all time games.  The gameplay is nowhere near what
we have today, but it is a must play for everyone who owns an Amiga it
will run on.  One problem with the game is that once you beat it, it will
probably just get shelved, it doesn't have enough elements to keep up its
re-playability.

Alphabetical list.