Crush Your Enemies – A Review

Crush Your Enemies from Vile Monarch and published by Gambitious Digital Entertainment, is real time strategy game set against the backdrop of a horrific beer drenched barbarian onslaught (which you will be leading). Available for download on Steam.

So, what does Goth King Aleric, Atilla the Hun, Conan, the guy from the cover of the Heroquest box and, my personal favourite, Queen Boudicca of the Iceni, all have in common? That’s right they were all serious bad ass barbarians. Now you can add Brog and his Kin to that list.

In ‘Crush Your Enemies’ you get to lead a barbarian horde as they mangle and drink their way across the country destroying anyone they consider to be their enemy (which is pretty much everyone).

Much like the barbarians of yore, Brog and his lot are significantly more organised than they are given credit for. Using your map, you must choose your battles carefully and sometimes doing the bare minimum is essential to progress before returning later with a better supplied stronger force to score a few more of those vital ‘heads on pikes’. The number of ‘heads on pikes’ being the way your performance is scored. Each battle takes place on a single screen and can take anywhere from a couple of minutes to half an hour (depending on your strategy) to complete. When I was first presented with the battle screen I thought it looked reminiscent of those 16-bit RTS classics such as General Chaos or Gain Ground. As a big fan of those games I prepared myself for disappointment. I’m happy to report that ‘Crush Your Enemies’ did not disappoint, I really like this game.

Each battle has fixed structures, such as training camps (you can convert your peasants into warriors, archers, shield bearers, scouts, wizards and more) and guard towers, and once the tutorial levels are out of the way you really do have to think about what strategy you are going to employ to . . . well . . . crush your enemy. On occasion, and after a few tries, I have thought ‘there is no way to win this’, never mind perform well enough to be rewarded with all three ‘head pikes’. Then after studying the battlefield for a few minutes before the battle I’ve thought ‘right ok, I might be able to do this. I’ll send ten of my 30 peasants straight at the enemy warriors to hold them, meanwhile I’ll send ten peasants to the warrior training camp and ten to the archer training camp. My warriors can then charge the enemy and my archers can flank them. I’ll place a dummy barbarian to the south to claim some land which will slow the enemy counter flanking movement, which might buy me enough time to defeat the enemy warriors and claim the tower before they are reinforced, after that . . . I’m not sure’. Even a small mistake or delay due to indecision can change the tide of the battle. I love this, it’s great. Occasionally a wild card will be thrown into the mix such as the headbutting snail, which will attack everyone nearby. You will need to use this enemy/ally to your advantage by manipulating it into doing your work for you. Again, this can give you a real sense of achievement or frustration (in a good way).

Inbetween battles, you can supply your horde by conquering breweries, that will provide you with beer (the universal currency of this land). Beer can be exchanged for supplies, which will give you an advantage on the battlefield, such as recruitment tents, dummy barbarians and strength potions. This all adds to the diversity of strategy and tactics you can employ on the battlefield.

The game has an online multiplayer feature and a single player campaign. Both feature over the top humour, which may upset a few people but I feel it is well within the context and style of the game and in no way offensive. As a continuation of this humour, Brog the Barbarian, has responded to some of the reviews of his game, which is pretty funny. I hope he responds to this one.

Right, lets get down to the nitty gritty. The graphics during gameplay are of a 16-bit style, which I never used to like but for whatever reason it feels right for this game. When the characters pop up, to verbally abuse one another, they are very well drawn and detailed, which adds a significant amount of depth to the narrative of the game. For the style of the game the animations are good, fluid and fun to watch. The controls are excellent and intuitive, you only use the mouse, leaving your other hand free for draining flagons of beer while battling. The gameplay is great and you will have to think hard if you want to achieve your three ‘head pikes’ as the enemy AI works really well too. The game also features cross platform multiplayer which means you can play on your mobile on the bus against your friend as he sits at the back of a meeting pretending to take notes on his laptop. For its current price point I’m finding very little to fault with this game. If you like small scale RTS games and don’t mind the 16-bit retro style graphics then you will like this game. I, for one, really enjoyed this game!

Vile Monarch‘s Crush Your Enemies is available now on Steam, you can also check it out on Facebook and Twitter.

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