Poor attempt at a historical sim
Knights of the Cross has its roots in an obscure Polish novel which describes a series of 15th century conflicts between Poland and Germany but unfortunately this is about the most interesting thing about the game. It's a turn-based strategy game where players take on the role of a knight of either side and must engage in a series of tactical missions, manoeuvring your forces and defeating your enemies in typical fashion. There are over 100 battles to take part in, with new units, weapons and upgrades available as you complete each one, while environmental conditions such as rain, snow and storms have an impact on the battles, with for example, wind direction affecting the accuracy of archers. In theory, Knights of the Cross could have been an interesting addition to the historical strategy genre, thanks to the potential of its particular setting. However, there really isn't much to recommend this to anyone but the most die-hard fan of such games. Firstly, the visuals are pretty poor, with basic animation and a lack of detail in the environments and units themselves, while music and sound are similarly unimpressive. A bigger problem though is that the AI is of a low level, making the game incredibly easy to beat and although there are a decent amount of units available on both sides, and which promises to make the two armies distinct, in practice there is no real difference between them. The interface too is awful, with an overcrowded screen that makes it very difficult to control your units with any accuracy while everything crawls along at a snail's pace and ultimately Knights of the Cross is a sub-par game that is easily skipped over by anyone except rabid genre fans.
