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Star Chamber: The Harbinger Saga

Score: 88%
ESRB: Not Rated
Publisher: Matrix Games
Developer: Worlds Apart Productions
Media: Download/1
Players: 1 - 4 (Online)
Genre: Turn-Based Strategy

Graphics & Sound:

Star Chamber: The Harbinger Saga is brought to you by Worlds Apart Productions, the same development team to bring you The Lord of the Rings Online Trading Card Game and the game's production quality and presentation are top notch.

The layout of the screen is fairly well done. Detailed information of selected planets or races is displayed on the left plane, while the cards you have in your hand are along the bottom of the screen. But the main focus is the game board which is represented by a series of planets and jump-lanes (the paths between planets and moons). At first, the scene seems a bit crowded and busy, but after the tutorials, you get used to the clutter and it just helps to give you an idea of what all is going on in the grand scheme of the campaign. As for the boards graphics, the view is top-down and all of the graphical elements are simple, 2D representations of the heavenly bodies. In general, the overall layout of the game is nice. It displays the information you need to see without making you feel crowded (well except for the game board itself).

Unfortunately, there isn't a lot to the game's audio. There is no background music to speak of and there are only low beeps and boops when you select items and cards on the screen. The sound effects were fine, but I would have preferred some low-key background music to help me focus.


Gameplay:

Based on the same gameplay engine as the LOTR TCG, Star Chamber: The Harbinger Saga provides a fun, all-around experience with fairly solid gameplay. Star Chamber has seven different game lobbies that will help you do everything from competing in tournaments to restructuring your decks.

The Casual Games lobby is where you can join or create games. Here you will be able to go online and face two to three opponents. Tournaments let you take part in scheduled tourneys.

Campaigns are where the game's single-player mode comes in. Here you will find the tutorial as well as many different campaigns based on which race you chose at the beginning of the game. The Deck Builder and Collection lobbies are where you will go through your acquired cards and put them together in a deck that fits your playing style.

The Trade lobby lets you arrange one-on-one swap sessions with your friends so that you can get the cards you need to complete your collection. Finally, the Store lobby is where you buy new starter decks, event tickets and booster packs.

Each turn is broken up into several phases, most of which happen automatically. You will spend most of your time in the Planning Phase. It is here where you move all of your characters on the board. They won't move when you send the command. Instead all of your characters will take up their new positions at the end of your turn. This seemed to be a bit counterintuitive to me. Most turn-based strategies that I have played allowed me to move and attack with each of my characters one at a time, instead of moving everyone at once. This means that you will have to think a little differently than most turn-based strategy games. It is here that you will tell troops and citizens to move from one planet to another in an attempt to conquer the location either by military or cultural supremacy.

Between turns, you will also draw several cards that will allow you to do everything from add technological weapons or enhancements on existing heroes and characters that are on the field to adding new characters to your fleet.


Difficulty:

Like I said in the last section, Star Chamber: The Harbinger Saga has both single-player and online-multiplayer components. The difficulty of the online component is based purely on your skill level compared to the other players' skills. Just because you can race through the offline version of this game, doesn't mean you will find it just as easy when you go up against real people. I found that enough people were online when I wanted to play against real opponents, that I was able to find a good mix of similarly skilled gamers to go up against.

As for the single-player campaigns, I found the enemy A.I.'s tended to start off easy. The first few matches weren't especially hard and that did a lot for helping me learn the ropes of the game. But as I progressed in the game's story -- I found myself facing harder and harder challenges. All in all, this game has a nice, smooth difficulty gradient.


Game Mechanics:

Though Star Chamber: The Harbinger Saga's menu system is elegant and pleasing to the eye, there are times when it gets a bit convoluted. Basically, it took a long time to get used to how to move my various troops effectively from location to location. Having to group citizens into travel plans and select the appropriate ships with the right movement speeds are just a few of the obstacles that gamers (newbies and veterans alike) will have to overcome. The main barrier that players will have in this game is getting over its learning curve and working through the uniqueness of this game.

In the end, The Harbinger Saga is a solid strategy game with a lot of flexibility and a wide variety of scenarios. It is definitely something to look into if you are a turn-based fan and you have a spare 30 bucks.


-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications
AKA Chris Meyer

Minimum System Requirements:



Windows 98/ME/2000/XP, 1GHz Processor, 128MB RAM, 250MB Hard Drive Space, 32-bit graphics, Internet Access
 

Test System:



Toshiba Satellite series laptop; Windows XP Home Ed.; 2.0 GHz Celeron; 1GB RAM; 24X DVD/CD ROM; 32 MB 3D accelerator.

Nintendo GameCube Mario Party 7 Sony PlayStation 2 Zathura

 
Game Vortex :: PSIllustrated