Friday Free Game: Swords and Sandals II Friday, February 16, 2007

The Red Bull Diary is pleased to present Swords and Sandals II, the sequel to the Friday Free Game from October 13th of last year. Like any good sequel, it offers more of what made the original game so much fun without changing the overall structure of the game. There are still opponents with goofy names, surly shopkeepers, and lots of ways to customize your character. But now there's more depth, more options, and a story structure woven in between the goofy gladiatorial bouts.

The first and most important new feature is the addition of missile weapons to the game. Now, instead of having to charge at your enemy to attack, you can sit back and soften him up a bit before drawing your axe and hacking off his limbs. There's also the addition of the Magic Shop, where you can have your weapon enchanted or purchase spells to sling at your hapless opponents. The arena has also changed format. In the original game, if you lost a fight, the game was over; not so this time around. You can still participate in tournaments, where you fight to the death, but beforehand you can build up by fighting duels, where you win by drawing first blood. There are also a number of new special combat abilities, including the ability to try to win over the crowd and do power-up strikes, but these weren't particularly interesting in the demo version of the game. I'll guess that these become more important as you move deeper into the game.

Unfortunately, the demo version doesn't let you get very far. Once you start to get the hang of things, the game tells you that you've gone as far as you can go without buying the full version. I'd really like to hear from someone who has played the full version to get a feel for what the full experience is like. But the demo is a lot of fun as something to while away an hour or so and I can heartily recommend it to any fan of the original.