Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim

For those of you who see yourselves as budding megalomaniacs, Hasbro's new god game, Majesty, is an attempt to fulfill your hankering for unopposed power. Set in the land of Ardania, you are the king of a city, which you must build up, make prosperous and defend.

At first, Majesty promises to be a very addictive game. The accessible interface makes building your town easy, and watching heroes go off on quests is great fun. A nice touch is that heroes won't fight to the bitter end, but will run away if they think they can't handle a situation. They can gain experience and go up in levels. If need be, you can cast spells to aid your citizens, but only at a price. Magic aside, you have no direct control over characters, but you can put bounties on buildings and evil creatures you want to eradicate, and hope your heroes take up the challenge.

It's hard to know whether to take Majesty seriously or not. The narrator is unashamedly trying to sound like Sean Connery, with each sentence containing more 'sh' sounds than a Ronan Keating vocal track, but the game does raise the odd smile. Early levels are pitifully easy, but later on the challenge is far greater. You'll find yourself manically trying to recruit more warriors as your town is slowly overrun by evil creatures. It's a real shame you can't build any walls to keep your enemies out, but not being able to fortify your city does somewhat add to the overall challenge. You can, however, tweak the difficulty levels somewhat with an editor. Resource management is easy to handle, but again slightly basic.

Majesty is a lot of fun, but is unlikely to take over your life. A sound multiplayer option (LAN or Internet) improves longevity, but it's still more likely you'll play Majesty when you have an hour or two spare, or when you're taking a break from other, more involving games. It's instantly accessible, easy to play, but unfortunately a tad limited in the long run.