Reviews
By now you would have created a shiny new avatar with the New Xbox Experience and wondering where to use it. A Kingdom for Keflings is one of the new XBLA games which makes use of your avatar as the central character and borrows ideas and themes from Settlers and Viva Pinata. You appear as a giant amongst the Keflings and can instruct them to do your bidding to gather resources and construct buildings in an effort to create a kingdom for them as the title suggests. There is no time limit to stress you out or enemies to worry about as the sole aim is to build and populate. This seemingly relaxing approach to gaming was once the privy of PC strategy gamers but now Xbox 360 owners get a chance to savour in this zen-like classic genre.
You start off with the choice of 4 default characters to choose from (but why you wouldn’t choose your own avatar is beyond me as it fits quite well into the setting) and a couple of Keflings to start your blueprint for a grand city. You can get into the dirty work yourself or simply assign the little ones a job and stand around like a big giant foreman. Give them a kick for good measure. Gather your first resources and the landscape starts filling up with your first buildings which then unlock new blueprints for bigger and better structures from new homes to factories and cathedrals. As the projects become more complicated so do your choice of resources and different elements of the building may require pieces from different workshops. A raw material like wood for example, may either be converted into planks or carved into ornaments and you will need to manage your workshops to ensure the correct elements are produced for completion of larger projects. The game difficulty progresses by bringing in new layers of resource management through the new buildings you created by producing more specialised resources at the cost of more basic resources. Future development is governed by a research tree that will open up new blueprints for new buildings. It’s a clever and engrossing system that will test your management skills. If you do make an error in judgement or build something you shouldn’t have, you can always demolish it and salvage the remains as resources to replenish your supplies.
Other layers to the gameplay are added when the Keflings start populating the land through you acquiring heart icons to fill the buildings with “love”. As your Kefling population grows so does your workforce and your abilities to expand the kingdom. Certain buildings can only be completed with certain educated Keflings or pickups you encounter in the land. Once you build the Town Hall you can take up mini quests through the town mayor to unlock new tools and abilities such as a pick to mine crystals or gloves to carry bigger loads. The game eases you into the levelling up process and soon you find yourself juggling a huge production queue from different workshops and relish in the satisfaction of seeing your growing city bustle with life.
Instructing the Keflings is very simple and although games of this genre have traditionally played better with a mouse, the fact that you control your giant avatar means it translates very well into the game with the controller. Menus and icons are intuitive and the general interface is very slick and easy to use. You can team up with 4 other players over Xbox Live but managing a growing city is probably easier if you’re the only one calling the shots and doing it at your own pace. There is a certain charm in the cartoony graphics which emphasises the relaxing nature of the game and even the cheesy looping music is easy on the ears. Seasons come and go which offers some nice variation to the world but with no tangible effect on the gameplay. The only blemish on the visuals is that the frame rate lets it down and isn’t as smooth as it could be. While resource collecting and constructing buildings is all that you do, the premise can get a little repetitive but it’s easy enough to come back and pick up where you left off. Completing the game will take a while and it’s rewarding and charming enough to easily warrant the 800 MS points. I found myself addicted to building my Kelfing kingdom just to see what’s next in the research tree and it’s a welcome break from constantly looking over my shoulder for snipers and explosions. So chill out and savour in one of gaming’s classic genres with the Keflings.
XboxZone Score: 8.2/10
-
|
|
|
|
|
|
|