MAIN
NEWS

Resources
CHEATS
GALLERY
RELEASE DATES
BETA CENTER
LINKS
FORUM
GAMERS DATABASE

Downloads
DEMOS
PATCHES
GAME TOOLS
MAPS/SCENARIOS

SGO
ABOUT US
FAQ
FEEDBACK
HOSTING

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

REVIEWS

War Along the Mohawk, set during the French and Indian Wars, is a good idea that needs some work. Rather than being a historical strategy game, it's more like a cowboy and Indian strategy game with a half-hearted attempt to add some role playing elements tossed in. Elements of the game are similar to other games of the real time genre but WATW falls short in many areas though it could have been a really great game.

To begin with, War Along the Mohawk has a very weak story line. Most of the time I found it a tedious game to play since it has so weak a plot to support a poor interface and engine. War Along the Mohawk uses a progressive story line rather than an open one. The choices the player makes do not really affect the outcome of the game. The only thing that affects the outcome of the game is whether or not the mission is completed or not. There is also little character development and it does very little to draw the player into the game.

Characters are the heart of War Along the Mohawk. Each is a unique combination of skills and abilities. A few skills are inate while others must be learned in the field by watching someone use the skill, effectively teaching the skill. Some characters can disguise themselves as deer or raccoon; others can read maps or fire cannon. You only get a few characters at the beginning; others must be discovered, liberated, on convinced before becoming available to you. The loss of one man early on in the game is more than irritating, it's downright catastrophic.

When it come to units if you're hoping to have a large selection than you are just plain out of luck. There are the French and English who essentially have the same units only with different names. These are either some type of rifleman armed with a musket or an officer with a pistol. Next you have the Indians who are broken down in a similar way. Some are bowmen and others, who tend to be the leader types, are armed with hand to hand weapons. Needless to say the ones with hand to hand weapons tend to lead short and brutal lives. The last units in War Along the Mohawk are the critters that are kind of tossed in. Bears, rats, wolves, deer, bats, and spiders all make up the list of animals you may encounter. Some can be hunted for more than just experience. A deer or raccoon pelt will enable a character with the proper skills to camouflage himself. Other pelts can be sold to buy things to better equip your party for later adventures.

The gameplay of War Along the Mohawk is not very good. Though game speed is somewhat adjustable, it still runs really slow. Even on my Pentium 166, which runs Total Annihilation well, it takes forever to walk across the map even at the fastest speed setting. It takes so much time to walk to places that it really takes a lot of the enjoyment out of the game. Not only is the game slow but scrolling across the map is accomplished using the arrow keys. Scrolling with the mouse is not an option. This gets very old very fast.

I also found the graphics to be more of a hindrance than help. The game will not run in 640x480 mode, only 800x600 mode. An audio track and map hold the briefings. There are none of the neat between mission movies to push the game along, and I found that a little bit disappointing. Units are way too small and it is nearly impossible to ambush or even launch a successful attack on the enemy since the only way to find them is to look for the smoke puffs as they fire at your party.

The game interface is also awkward to use. It resembles Windows 95 windows and trying to access the menu you want when you need it can be down right frustrating. Sometimes I would close a menu and not be able to call it up when I need it sat enough. My units would already be dead. Over all the interface causes more problems than it solves.

The final gripe I have about War Along the Mohawk is that the audio is just as mediocre as the rest of the game. The sound should be compared to games of five or six years ago to be a fair comparison. It just can't be compared to the audio tracks that the good games of today use. At times it gets just downright annoying as your characters acknowledge commands every time you click the mouse on the map. Mission briefs are also handled by an audio track rather than a movie style cutscene. At the very least they did take the time to get some one with an authentic accent to do the voices rather than a just slapping in some one who had no clue what a french or english accent sounds like.

I can safely say that this is a game that I would have been very disappointed with had I have gone out and spent $50 on it. But the game cost only $20, which is what it's worth. War Along the Mohawk is a good idea gone due south, way south.

Reviewed by Jon Eyman

Copyright © 1998 Strategy Gaming Online. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or in any medium without express permission of Strategy Gaming Online is prohibited.