Majesty 2 is the newest release from Paradox Interactive, who have been frankly fantastic in their publishing choices in 2009.  The company has gone from strength to strength this year and their newest release shows they continue to be on-the-up.

Majesty 2 is described as a ‘fantasy kingdom sim’.  You play the ruler of Ardania, a land full of loyal servants.  Well, loyal as long as you’re thrusting cash at them that is.  For unlike many other games of a similar ilk, the heroes and warriors Majesty 2 have free will and in order to get them to do your bidding, you need to offer an incentive: cold hard cash.

The way you do this is to set various flags, such as ‘explore’, ‘attack’ and ‘defend’ and offer a reward for the fulfilment of the task.  Your subjects will look for work and the greater the bounty, the more likely it is that they will take on the task.  Unlike many other games, economy is a very strong driver in Majesty 2.  It isn’t enough to build up a large collection of warriors, ranges and rogues – you need to have a steady supply of cash to keep them interested through the missions.

As well as a variety of heroes, Majesty 2 also offers a variety of monsters in the form of ogres, beasts, minotaurs and undead, some of which are easier to kill than others.  You can seek out the hiding places of these creatures and destroy them and this is definitely advisable.  There’s nothing worse than trying to erect a structure, only to have a skeleton come and beat the living daylights out of your building peasant before it’s completed.

The graphic detail in Majesty 2 is pleasantly impressive.  The landscapes, building detail, monsters and heroes are well thought out.  I tried Majesty 2 on both a laptop and a desktop.  Whilst the desktop visuals were – as expected – significantly more impressive, the game played well on the laptop too.  Even on the lowest quality settings I still found there was more than enough detail and it was still very visually appealing.  As with other Paradox Interactive titles, the music is an excellent fit, adding ambience and atmosphere to an already very good game.

Majesty 2 becomes more challenging as it progresses, which prevents you from becoming complacent and it doesn’t have the ‘plodding along’ or ‘repetitive’ feel that some strategy/sim games can have.  Instead the missions are a reasonable length and the game progresses at a good pace.  At times it can be extremely tough but greed is the key: you won’t motivate your heroes if you can’t offer them gold, so never forget about the economics of the game. 

There’s very little to find fault with in Majesty 2.  It’s been a long time coming (the original Majesty was released in 2000) but the devil is always in the detail and it’s clear that someone has kept this in mind when producing this game.  The result is a fantastic game that will keep players entertained for hours on end.

**Review by Donna Haw**