“Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of the women!” These were the famous words ushered by the overnight legend of action films, Arnold Schwartzenegger. In the 1982 fantasy action film, Arnold stars as Conan, a young boy born to fight in the wasteland desert kingdom. After seeing his family slain at the hands of cultist leader Thulsa Doom, he is forced into slavery.
Over the years, he becomes a muscular, skilled warrior, eventually freeing himself from slavery in the gladiator games. While free, he vows to seek revenge against Doom for the death of his family and spreading darkness throughout the land. Throughout his film, Conan is an unstoppable barbarian, slaying beasts, decapitating warriors, spilling gallons of blood, and partaking in intimacy with a lovely Valkyrie. It’s a dark, grisly world made exciting by Conan’s no-nonsense, rule-breaking art of fighting and slaying.
It was a stark contrast to the assumed nobility and integrity of the hero character. It is more than likely that, because of this movie, Poland-based Vile Monarch Games and Good Shepard Entertainment released Crush Your Enemies, a tactical strategic video game in which players are the barbarians, and the enemy are the corrupted peoples of the noble class. Through pillaging villages, castles, and large swaths of land Crush Your Enemies puts players in an interesting strategic experience that is incredibly satisfying.
You and your group of barbarians are tired of the noble kingdom. Its citizens are boring, its rules are no-fun, and the king constantly abuses the privileges that come with royalty. As barbarians, it is up to you and your small army to take the fight to the king. To do so, you will need an army, which you do have, but you will also need tactical skills. The kingdom’s forces aren’t pushovers, and you will need to your sharp wits and skills to survive the coming battles. This conquest will involve taking over entire kingdoms and plundering villages for the lifeblood of any military: beer.
Crush Your Enemies is a tactical game, in which players may either use physical controls or touch-screen controls, to command their armies across the board. The game plays out as a real-time strategy. Players will give commands and their small bundle of barbarians will immediately respond to whichever command is given. As the title suggests, the objective of each level is to crush your enemies. To successfully do this, players must be able to consolidate resources, such as unit generation and how many units to send out into battle. Additionally, players must consider seizing structures in their paths of tactical domination. While this may sound complicated, Crush Your Enemies is extremely accessible, even for players that have not played a tactic real-time strategy game.
Players move across the board with their barbarians. The board contains small squares, which the barbarians, as well as the enemies, will need to take over if they wish to traverse the battlefield. If players come face to face with the opposing army, then a battle will automatically break out. Numbers do matter in Crush Your Enemies. If you send a team of 20 barbarians against 50 enemy soldier, expect to lose that fight. However, players can seize resources and use them for their own gain. The enemy will have structures to seize, such as ballista towers and equipment huts. Seizing these structure will give your forces an advantage.
For example, if players send a squad of 20 barbarians to seize an equipment hut, they will have helmets, swords, and shields. Their attack power is greatly increased. Twenty equipped soldiers could easily go through an unequipped enemy force. These opportunities will present themselves during the course of the game, and they will be necessary to survive. The game will get significantly more difficult, challenging the player to complete secondary objectives and even survive endless onslaughts.
My only real gripe with Crush Your Enemies can be the difficulty, as there can be some serious spikes in the levels, especially early on. However, all it takes is some tried-and-true repeat gameplay to fully conquer them. However, despite that Crush Your Enemies is a gory good time. The ability to plunder and conquer your enemies in real-time strategy is incredibly rewarding. Seeing your enemies be slaughtered and dismembered in pixelated glory is brutal but very fun. Even the overall style and story for the game is meant to be outrageous and self-aware. The load-screens between levels, in particular, display jokes such as ” Writing offensive tweets..” or ” Twirling Chest Hair….” It’s an enjoyable experience that gave quite a few laughs.
Crush Your Enemies is an engaging real-time strategy game, filled with brutal violence, good humor, and tactical challenge. It’s great for being on-the-go, as well as playing at home. While you may not be wielding a giant sword or solving the riddle of steel, you’ll feel the reward of crushing your enemies and see them being driven before you.
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