The Horde is one of the greatest action/strategy games of its time. Back in the old DOS days when I first started playing this, I was immediately immersed in the story and the fluent game-play. The game starts out when young servant boy Chauncey saves the king from choking on some food during a feast. In return for saving him, the king gives him land to oversee a village, and this is when the action begins.
You will go through each of the seasons, trying to make money by planting and chopping down trees and buying cows.
At the same time, you will attempt to protect your village by strategically making walls and barriers and hiring knights and archers. At the end of the season, the hordlings will come and try to attack your village. This is where the action element comes into play. You will control Chauncey and attack the horde with your sword and items before they gobble up your crops and villagers. Your strategic defenses will help you slow or kill them (they can drown in water, go into spike traps, get killed by your mercenaries or be blocked by walls). You will then be paid based on the number of crops, villagers, and cows you managed to keep alive. If your whole village dies you will lose.
This
game would have been truly ground-breaking for its time had the developers had spent a little more work on some of the negatives. Things such as control will hamper your experience as you struggle to get Chauncey where he needs to be. Often times you will need to get close to a hordling to attack it, but accidentally get too close and be hurt by it. New people who play this game may not be familiar with the economics and in the later stages, when money is needed the most to buy defenses, they may not have saved up enough of it.
The cut-scenes are also a bit cheesy, though funny I must admit. However, the graphics are amazing, the items are amazing, and at the core is an amazing game that is on the edge of greatness. I am sure that you will smile as you make Chauncey awkwardly swing his sword and explode a hordling. And you will be very happy when you find out how well your defenses that you intelligently built hamper the hordlings progress into your small town.
