Northland looked like a pretty unique game when we received it. For one, it's made by European developers, who always put little twists in their games that we in the States would never think of, and the look of the game was somewhat cartoonish. The look struck us as unique in a genre that always goes for the more bloody battle scenes. The major selling point of this game is the uniqueness of each individual unit. They all have names that you can change, and you get to choose each of their occupations. They can grow in experience and become more advanced practitioners of their skill, and they can all marry and have kids as well. The game is a sequel, so it comes with a stock set of heroes that were introduced in the previous games: Bjami the Viking, Crya the Byzantine princess, Hatschi the Saracen, and Sigurd the Frankish hero. The game starts out with Bjami and Crya coming to the aid of Hatschi's village, under attack by a horde of evil serpent demons. You get to control the Viking forces the entire game. So now that we know what to expect, let's wade on in and see how the water is.

The player can choose to go through the tutorials, free play, the single campaign, or the multiplayer campaign. The tutorials are very worthwhile but also very long and complicated (it took us four hours just to complete them). Free play is your basic skirmish mode where you build yourself up into a wealthy tribe and maybe bash a few enemies into oblivion. The single player campaign is an eight mission campaign covering the new exploits of our four heroes spanning North Africa and Europe. The multiplayer campaign is a six mission campaign that can be played with up to six players, or be played in single player mode if you like. Combat in Northland is pretty straightforward. You have your swordsmen, spearmen, and archers. Their effectiveness is dictated by the quality of their weapons (wooden vs. iron spears, short vs. long sword), and the accessories that you choose to equip them with. Soldiers need to be given shoes for movement and stamina bonuses, along with an assortment of potions to maintain their health. They can carry potions for nourishment, stamina, and accuracy. These are all provided by the local druid, who needs water, herbs, mushrooms, and gold to produce them (see how much time you'll be spending on your economy?).

What gets in the way of great gaming experience is simply the enormously complicated economy that your society depends on in order to build the military you need. You start out small, gathering clay, stone and wood. Then you build a farm, a pottery and a mason. The farm leads to a mill and then to a bakery to produce better foodstuffs for your Vikings. You can upgrade the pottery and the mason to produce more complicated goods as well, such as hand carts and marble. Workers must be assigned to these facilities manually. While you're doing this, you're pulling people away from the clay pits and forests to become potters and farmers. They need to be replaced, but how? Northland has you do it the old fashioned way. Marry one of your womenfolk to one of your menfolk, leave them alone in their dwelling for a minute or so, and poof! A new Viking! Wait around fifteen years for the baby to become a new worker (game time about five minutes), and you've got replacements! So you must constantly balance your population, your workforce, and your resources. If you go all out and try to provide an ultra-comfortable existence for your people with all the trimmings, you'll be equipping them with shoes, furniture for their houses, crockery for their food, oil for their lamps, and potions for their health. Oh, and did we mention that you'll be fighting off hordes of enemies while all this is going on?

Northland is for the gamer who is always more interested in the economical aspects of the RTS rather than all-out combat. The sheer intricacy of all the economical elements present in this game will take up 75% of your time or more. We can't tell you the number of times our troops were vaporized while we were trying to tell the carpenter to stop making furniture and start making wooden spears! This game won't match well with fans of StarCraft, but fans of slower-moving RTSs such as Homeworld or Blitzkrieg might find this a worthwhile title.