Heaven and Hell

[Kraellin]

i was in the store this last weekend and couldnt find the game i was looking for, so i went to the bargain bin and found this little gem for $5. yes, the name is 'Heaven and Hell: To Live and Die for'. i dont know how old the title is, but it's rated fo windows xp as well as all the earlier windows through win 98.

this thing is cute. it's sort of like Populous, if you ever played that, and also reminds me a bit of 'Black and White', but without the creatures. instead, you play either God or the Devil and work your magic through your minions. the chief of these minions is your priest or 'Baptiscon'. dont ask me what it means, but i think it's play on Baptist. you also can create another 'prophet', the beat o'con'...or something like that. this guy is your general who can create warriors. you can also create other units out of your general population, but i wont suffer you all of them here.

the idea is to convert the world to either 'good' or 'evil'. as god or the devil your power is represented by the old standard, 'mana'. as your converts grow, so does your mana. the more mana you have, the more things you can do, a' la Populous.

there's a tutorial, which gives you only the very basics. this is enhanced, hwoever, by the campaign game, which is more like an extended tutorial than a campaign. there are also single map games, a random map generator, which is also sort of your map editor, and a 'surprise' map generator. and, there's also a small game manual, which i havent even looked at yet.

and that brings me to the quality of the game. it runs pretty clean. i've found very few bugs and those are mostly minor, with the exception of one crash to desktop late in a single player map. so, save often. i'm running the game on a 1.7 ghz cpu with a gf4 mx 440 pci card. the game installed just fine and comes in at about 900 megs of disk space. the intros ran a bit rough, stuttering now and then, so i'm assuming they didnt load the intros onto the harddrive and just ran them from the cd.

the graphics are fairly simplistic, but quite acceptable. there is music, but i always turn the music off in games, so i cant speak to what it was like. the figures of the minions are cute and well rendered. the game is one of those 2d maps simulating 3d and nothing more is really needed for this game and what it does.

overall it's a fun little game, and for $5 i've already gotten my money's worth :) i believe this game was made by a dutch company based on the web site domains for support and help. so, if you see this little gem in the bargain bin, i recommend it.

K.

[Kraellin]

i've been playing a bit more and have some corrections to make. it's 'Baptisbon' and 'Beat up O'Bon'. the developer is Eigelb and their web address ends in .de, which is why i thought maybe it was dutch. i'm actually not sure it's dutch at all. the voices are in english, so i'm not really sure there.

the campaign game is indeed almost like a giant tutorial. every few levels or so, you are introduced to a new unit type and a situation where he is appropriate and gets to demonstrate how best to use him. i've also run into one scenario within the campaign that i find to be a bit of a developer cheat, or perhaps my timing was just really bad. but, the enemy has managed to almost completely turn off my mana production and capped it at a very small figure. and, in doing so, prevents me from destroying the item that was supposed to have done this to me, a building type. this seems a bit cheap as far as game tactics and has me wondering that if i do the counterpart to this and build my building type of the same sort, does this turn off the AI's mana production? i'll have to try the level again and see if this was just bad timing, catching me with my mana down, or if it's an exact thing where my mana is cut to a small level and capped. the 'cheat' is that i've still got all my mana producing buildings, which shld be bringing in mana by the bushel, so i find this little mechanism a bit of a cheap trick. we'll see.

aside from that, and two ctd's when i've been playing for an extended amount of time with a lot going on, i find this game pretty fun. i suppose one would classify this game as a 2d strategy, builder game. i've also tried a couple of the 'random' single map games and indeed, you do get to customize your map a bit. it's not quite a true editor. it's more like a random map generator where you can affect the inputs of things, like, how much of the terrain is mountains, grass, how many cities max, what size the cities can be, and so on. so, there's a few options there that are missing that one might find in a true level editor.

all in all, the game is amusing and enjoyable. some of the cut scenes are humorous and one level in the campaign has an opening scenario that is amusing. your baptisbon is missing. it seems he's been wandering around and got trapped on a hill by a flood while trying to convert the local flock of sheep to the good side :) by your actions and certain circumstances, you eventually free him again for use, but it's a cute little level.

for the hardcore shootem-up gamer, i doubt this game will amuse, even though there is an online, multiplayer feature in the game. for the folks that liked populous, civilization, black and white and a few others along those lines, it's an enjoyable romp in fantasyland.

K.

[Lehesu]

A website ending in de is probably German.

[Kraellin]

yup. looks like you're right. here's the website: http://www.heavengame.de/

K.