Hellwars Review: Free Browser Based MMORPG Warfare

Overview

Hellwars is a free browser based MMORPG in which you take on the role of a commander in an epic struggle between four races, Angels, Undeads, Draconians and Demons. Each race has specific special advantages.

Signing Up (4 out of 5)

It is free to create a new account and you can join in the action quite quickly after entering a valid email address and choosing your name and race. Each new player is assigned a commander who teaches you the game and you can recruit new soldiers for your army by clicking a link or getting your friends to click your link.

Features (2 out of 5)

Each turn your gold counts up and you can steal it from other players by engaging them in battle. Gold can be spent on a variety of weaponry, magical items and defensive fortifications or siege equipment. You can also train spies and recruit mercenaries.

Once you have created an account you can log in and there are a series of links down the left hand side of the screen. In the command center you’ll see information on your game stats and the size of your current army. You can engage in attacks on other players or review attacks on your forces with the attack link. In the armory you can spend gold to acquire new weapons, defensive items or to upgrade your fortifications or siege equipment. Via the magic tab you can acquire new magic attacks. There is also a training option to upgrade your men and an intelligence tab to review the information gathered by your spies.

This is a fast paced game which requires an awful lot of clicking links trying to build up resources. It seems quite complex at first and unfortunately when I first played the forum was down and some of the links didn’t seem to work properly. It is far from intuitive and you definitely need to do a bit of reading and experimenting before you can get anything out of it.

Graphics (1 out of 5)

Graphically speaking the game is made up of lots of dry web pages and there is very little artwork to immerse you in the world. Battles are played and result in a statistics screen which tells you the result. The game would definitely benefit from some basic artwork.

Overall (2 out of 5)

After clicking around for a while I built up my army and launched my first attack which resulted in a strange series of statistics being thrown up telling me that zero casualties had been sustained on either side but I had won a crushing victory and gained a load of gold. It is quite fast paced and you can build up your strength quite quickly by attacking opponents although you can only recruit a certain number of troops each day unless you get other people to click your recruit link.

There is a lack of things to do in the game and boredom set in quite quickly. The tactics are limited and you can attack superior forces and still win victories. After building up loads of cash and improving my army the turns ran out and my interest waned. You can build up a mighty army and each era lasts for a set period before things are rebooted for a new war. You can dip into Hellwars each day for a short time to keep your forces ticking over but overall it lacks a hook in the game-play to entice you back for more.