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Paradox's New Strategy Offerings
Product: Majesty 2, Hearts of Iron III
Company: Paradox
Date: 06/14/2009
Avaliable On:

Unlike Majesty, where Paradox signed on simply to release the game, in Majesty 2, Paradox has been hands-on from the beginning. They've listened to the feedback from fans, making the multiplayer aspect more simple and they've tweaked the mechanics. They've added new flags like Protect and Fear, in addition to the previous flags, Attack and Explore. They've thrown in RPG elements that make the heroes react differently depending on the situation. If you aren't paying the heroes enough money, they will refuse to do quests and such.

Additionally, the dark British humor Majesty is known for is still there, along with the all-important facial expressions and voices. Plus, one original voice actor has returned to give players that familiar aspect.

The 3D graphics have been completely revamped, and better A.I. and sound have also been included. LAN and internet multiplayer play is available and tournaments will be held through Gamespy, along with specific maps just for multiplayer.

There are 16 missions to play through, and a new party-forming system where you can clump together 4 heroes for better effect. Stay tuned for an in-depth hands-on preview coming very soon.

Hearts of Iron III is a WWII strategy game that gives you full control over the political and economic aspects such as Diplomacy, Production, Technology, Politics, Intelligence and Statistics. Diplomacy may have smaller countries negotiating with bigger countries to get U.S.-styled weapons by building alliances and utilizing embargoes. In Technology, there are 12 tech trees with 2 dozen techs, so you can keep researching in an unlimited capacity. But it will be tough to decide whether you want to keep on researching or whether you want to focus your efforts on espionage or diplomacy officers. Obviously, when it comes to Politics, you can't use certain famous personalities from WWII, (cough, Hitler, cough) but you can still be quite creative. If you find yourself getting bogged down in the minutiae of micromanagement, you can turn on the A.I. control for each of the above-named aspects to let things ride and just back out to check out the weather effects.

Hearts of Iron III is set to release in early August 2009, and we'll have a hands-on preview posting in the next few weeks to get you ready to go for the game's release.

Psibabe aka Ashley Perkins

GameVortex PSIllustrated