The Settlers

If you’ve been counting (I think Ubisoft is now up to eight releases of the game), you’ll know that Settlers has been around for a long time, since the days when the Amiga was a high-end graphics performance machine. Although things are bound to change over the years, Settlers games have always been known for their slower-paced, real-time strategy focus, which gives economics and unit management as much of its time as battle. We can only hope that this new DS release will offer as much detail and care as previous versions.

So, what’s on offer this time around? Well, for starters, you’re able to play as one of four different cultures, Romans, Vikings, Nubians or Asians, in your quest for world dominance. You can go to war with six different types of soldier, or if you’d prefer, develop your civilization with thirty different type of worker, including farmers, hunters, fishermen, and shipbuilders. The game also takes place over a range of different environments and climates, including wood, lava, ice and swamp ground, on seven different continents.

Furthermore, you’re not just limited to a single campaign; you’ve got two campaigns to choose from, Roman or “World”, in addition to Free Mode, where you compete against AI opponents.

The DS stylus is used instead of the mouse, and you’ll use it to zoom in, manipulate your workers and soldiers, and even to swap the top and bottom screens (which at default settings display the world in action, and an organisation menu, respectively).

Settlers for the DS is one of the more highly anticipated games around the NZGamer office; this title does seem to offer a helluva lot of game in such a small package.