For once, a LITERAL example of Real-Time Strategy
Would your average, uneducated peasant really be able to mine a sack of gold in about a second? Could you really have fully-trained army of footmen, archers, and knights ready for battle in fifteen minutes? While micromanaging a variety of resources plays a prominent role in some of the most famous real-time strategy games, Bungie throws all of that out the window with their Myth series. The only resources you have are your soldiers, and they're more precious than all the gold, lumber, and vespene gas in the world. Victory through superior firepower is simply not an option in Myth's unique brand of real-time strategy. For once the genre actually lives up to its name, forcing players to make critical decisions on a moment's notice, without the luxury of knowing that they can simply build more troops to replace their dead.
Myth II: Soulblighter improves upon its predecessor in every conceivable way (no mean feat considering how strong the original Myth was). The visuals have been given a slight overhaul, especially the sprites, and the players control over their units has been refined. The difficulty of the game has also been ratcheted up considerably, mainly due to the addition of several new enemy types (the Myrkridia are particularly devastating.)
The series isn't quite so popular now as it was in its heyday, so many people probably have no idea what Myth is all about. At its most basic level it's about causing wanton destruction to enemy troops while preserving your own as best as possible. That's a rather generic description, but it aptly sums up the main goal of each level in the game: face overwhelming odds and come out unscathed.
To meet this goal, the player is given a variety of units to command. These range from your typical archers and footmen (or their faster, stronger Berserker counterparts) to molotov-cocktail wielding dwarves to gigantic... err... Giants with more than a passing resemblance to Tolkein's Ents. Each unit has their own strengths and weaknesses, and even the more generic types play an important role in the game's combat.
Footmen have average speed, average attack strength, but even one can hold his own against several slow moving enemy Thralls. Archers have the luxury of attacking at range, with fire arrows as a secondary attack, but don't do nearly as much damage as their melee-based counterparts. Aside from being completely awesome, Dwarves can use their explosive alcohols to damage or destroy groups of enemies, but their low health makes them easily killed by their own explosives and they often throw dud bottles that bounce off enemies with no effect.
To effectively make use of all the different unit types at your disposal, you need to consider formations, which the game has provided in the toolbar. Hitting 1-9 line your selected units up in a specific fashion, be it a staggered line, a circle, or the V-shaped vanguard formation. You can also split your army into several groups in an attempt to flank the enemy, take higher ground, cause a distraction, or evade combat altogether. If you're lucky enough to emerge from a mission with living, breathing bodies your veteran soldiers will join you in the next mission, sporting increased strength and skill (archers hit their marks more often, dwarves throw less duds, berserkers... go more berserk...)
In writing, combat may sound boring, but when there's blood and guts flying all over the place, it's a complete blast. As important as your own troops are, you can't help but smile when the game's narrator dryly informs you when your army takes casualties.
Myth II works perfectly in both Win XP as well as Vista, so modern computers should have no problem running the game at all. It's held up remarkably well in the years since its release. For additional value, you should try and track down the Total Codex package that includes Myth: The Fallen Lords, Myth II, and the third party expansion, Myth II: Chimera. I picked it up for 20 bucks years ago, so chances are it's floating around for cheaper, but if not, standalone Myth II won't put you much in the hole at all.
