The Settlers Online | Review

As a fan of browser based civilization type games I was pretty pumped to get on and give The Settlers Online a tryout. Settler's games have a great history and have been around for years, just how would the online version shape up - read on for our thoughts.

As with any online game, you'll need an account, so first of all let's take you through the signup process. Thankfully, it's pretty painless just input your email and a password plus your uplay name (or enter a new one if you don't have one already), then it's just a matter of selecting your in game avatar and naming him... Then it's off to the tutorial world.

Immediately as you start the game you'll see that the graphics are top notch, and thankfully you are given the whole screen to play with. The world is set in a kind of idyllic countryside location, you can even hear the birds whistling in the trees, and so it begins... You are now taken through a series of tutorials that get you used to the basic functions of the game. It can be a bit tedious especially waiting for buildings to complete so it's a good idea to have something else on the go at the same time, otherwise boredom could soon set in.

While playing through the tutorial you'll probably realise that you should probably doing things outside of the tutorial too... Don't be afraid to build a few more mines, sawmills etc... But try to keep a balance or you'll soon find yourself with a whole storehouse full of one thing - like wood! The tutorial does stretch on for probably too long without really explaining what the aim of the game is.

If you've got 'gems' which is the in-game currency you can do neat things like halve the time for construction of buildings and purchase special objects, but of course, you'll need real live greenbacks to purchase those in The Settlers Online shop.

Getting into the game does take time as you progress through the tutorials you need to wait for your resources to catch up with the requirements of the builds you are being ask to perform, you can keep leveling up and going through the tasks but in the beginning it is very slow going, I've been at it on and off for a couple of days and have got to level 14 with no real strain, just usage of my time to follow the simple in-game instructions.

So what has the game got to offer when things really get going... Well you can join guilds, chat to other players using the onscreen chat box, exchange items with friends and eventually PvP battle. However, you will find that gameplay gets a bit limited even after a couple of days if your not prepared to go and buy some gems form the in-game shop. The first limit you'll come across is the building limit - My game reached level 16 in a couple of days of casual play but I'll struggle to get much further quickly because my building limit has been reached which limits the amount of resources I can collect and weapons I can build etc... At this point it's a matter of trying to get a couple of level upgrades before and then focusing on upgrading your buildings and finding the right balance of resource gathering. Alternatively you can fork out some cash for some building permits. The only other way to acquire more building permits is to take over a new sector, to do this you have to discover it then clear it from the bandits that are settled there.

In summary, it's a neat RTS, build and battle game, the server is fast and being part of such an established franchise will sure to attract a large and active crowd. It's a great game to one to open an account on and try out, however it is a little slow to develop after the tutorial stage when you hit your building limit. I've also found it quite difficult to stay interested due to the building constraints and the time it takes to build enough resources to rebuild your army after each battler before you can make another attack - So after one week - I'm done.