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As you can probably guess from the title, Highland Warriors is a game that tracks the history of the Scots during medieval period. Kilts, accents, gore and bloody melee fights in the snow: Highland Warriors is definitely the whole package. Loosely based on historical events, including heroes like William Wallace and Robert the Bruce (yes, hero not anti-hero, he wasn't exactly the evil person portrayed in the movies), Highland Warriors tries to capitalize on the cinematic success of films like Braveheart and turn it into a compelling real-time strategy game.
 
In its simplest form, Highland Warriors is a 3D version of the traditional RTS game. All of the peasants, harvesting and upgrading are present in the thirty-five single player missions. The developers, however, have chosen to exercise their license by including hero units as well as a handful of chronological campaigns linked together. Presented through dozens of cutscenes, the overall theme is Scotland's fight for independence from the English. But you're able to take on the Highland, Mystique, Merchant clans and the English as well. This isn't a line-by-line transcription of history though. The developers provide some leeway in the way of magic through druids and other parts of Scottish folklore. On the realism side, Highland Warriors does feature a few tactical improvements over the usual RTS fare. Like most 3D strategy titles, elevation and height of terrain have take effect on the battle. They can extend the range of artillery and missile troops but there's more to Highland Warriors' emphasis on tactics than simply using the 3D terrain.
 
Formations have a real effect on your troops. Rather than simply making your units look good when grouped together, column formations speed up movement but this naturally leads to weaker defense. A wedge, for example, can drive into enemy formations and will have greater success at scattering units. Hero units and standard bearers promote the grouping of your units. Heroes can also execute special attacks and during multiplayer, you can hire the different characters found throughout the single player campaigns. Backing all this up is a custom 3D engine designed to support the battle of hundreds of units. The engine is able to render landscapes with different seasons and even the time of day affects the type of shadow cast by your units. It's quite adept at drawing up good looking forts to scale, complete with watchtowers manned by archers. And since the engine is also used for the cinematic cutscenes, there's an emphasis by the developers on getting the right facial and body animations. All of this culminates in some pretty gory battle scenes not unlike the movies from Hollywood. Indeed, the mailed and armored English look eerily like their counterparts on the silver screen.
 
Unlike most RTS games in 3D, this 3D camera doesn't get in the way of the game. It's relatively easy to use and employs the same conventions of top down 3D RTS titles. Mouse wheel, for example, zooms in and out. Taking a page out of MMORPGs, the user interface is also customizable. Performance is peppy in spite of the many features and Highland Warriors comes with a comprehensive setup program to help you tweak your PC in preparation for the epic blood spilling. On the multiplayer front, Highland Warriors will also feature skirmishes with up to eight players - LAN and internet. Included in the final release will be a map editor that will enable budding game designers to craft their own medieval battlefields.
 
While the battles are certainly the highlights of the game, there are missions where you will be tasked to set up bases. These execute similar to Age of Empires except some things like cultivating fields are done automatically (probably the biggest Achilles heel of the original Age of Empires). The game duly notes any idle peasant workers and in general, tries to promote the most efficient play. Not all is perfect with Highland Warriors though. Some of the written text is inconsistent. To quit the game, you have to press a button called "Abort Program". I've heard of abort mission and quit or exit program but that's a pretty technical term right there.
 
With respect to the unit animation, they're all very impressive. Units armed with dissimilar weapons will attack in equally different fashions so there's no mass overhand hacking during the battles. But your skirmishers sometimes exhibit a sliding moonwalk effect, especially when they're chasing down enemy units nearby.  
I'm sure these will be picked up by release time for Highland Warriors. The uphill battle for it, however, is not really with the mechanics. It's with dispelling the notion that no game based on the Scottish struggle for independence has been good. A few games have tried to do it, even incorporating the movie license itself but few developers have been able to replicate the Braveheart-esque battles, and in the same product, also include a competent game. Highland Warriors will make a timely entrance to do so in snowy January.
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