War of Legends is like coffee – it's a rather acquired taste, as are other things like earwax and sardines. Not everyone will like it, and War of Legends won't like everyone either. So what exactly is War of Legends? Have you even heard of it? Have you played it, already hated it, and are just reading this review so that you can comment on how bad it is? Yes to that last question, probably. One way or the other, the important questions will be answered in my review of Lore of Wedges (War of Legends). War of Legends, though published by Jagex, is not anything like the game we associate the name "Jagex" with. There's no clicking around to move your polygonal characters; there's no switching out equipment to get the absolute best – if not mismatched – outfit; and there's no world economy that needs balancing. It's a Multiplayer RTS.

My experience with these sorts of games are mixed. I played a game called Ikariam, which featured a fat, grinning cartoon guy who basically said: "Here's an empty plot of land for you to place your fat butt upon. Enjoy." So I tried to "enjoy." Despite this, it was too un-epic for my tastes, between the laughably cartoonish weirdos to the unholy amount of things that had to be researched. As such, I quit the game after a couple of days, as there was simply too much micro-management, thus requiring more of my time than I felt should be required of an MMORTS.

I've kicked Evony to the side out of sheer principle. Any game that tries to draw in drooling males with their ridiculous ads just adds several levels of immaturity to the game. I don't care how good the game is if they try using that tactic to get people to play, since I'd feel considerable embarrassment if anyone asked me if I indulged even for a second in the game. I'd hang my head and mumble, "Yeah, I do." I did watch a friend play it once, and I got a very small idea of how it worked, though. And the Wikipedia article helped.

So what does War of Legends have to offer? Well, the basics are about as generic as you can get. You have five basic resources to gather: Gold (from bleeding your population), Timber (hiring a crack squad of beavers), Copper (stealing from the dwarves), Food (mass-producing lunchables), and Stone (gathering rocks from your backyard). A sixth resource is quite possibly the population itself, but there is a decisive maximum of that, and can only increase to a certain amount. All of these are essential to building things and making soldiers, from sending box lunches along with your troops, to making your walls more enemy-proof.

And there is a lot of crap for you to research, but none of it is essential to building things (with the exception of troops). This made me jump up and down with glee, since I was pretty much able to independently make anything that I wanted.

Which brings me to the actual gameplay. You go through the usual rigmarole; you're plopped onto a completely desolate piece of land with nothing but a palace and some fancy ground tiles to your name, and the tutorial begins. The gameplay isn't really gameplay; it's more like game-management, as in most MMORTS's. Initially, to create a cropland (which yields food), it takes a whopping five seconds to create. However, as time goes on, it takes up to a few hours. I'm not entirely sure, but I'm pretty sure that, eventually, things will take whole days to upgrade. As if that makes any sense at all – it'd be like taking three hours to build a house, but three weeks to touch up the paint. Still, it's a mechanic that must be in place.

While War of Legends doesn't add much uniqueness, there is one aspect that makes things a slight bit more interesting: The legends themselves. Yes, there are legends, but we're not talking about Thor, or Snoopy, or the Balrog. We're talking about ordinary dudes who just happen to have upgradable stats and really unusual hair. These guys can be leveled up by either having them kill stuff, or by appointing them as governor over your city, to which they can add healthy bonuses to your resource output. When they level up, that legend obtains a handful of upgrade points, which can be added to three different stats of your choosing. I won't get into detail, but basically, you can choose to upgrade their Health, their Strength, and their Defense. How generic can you get?

However, the stats also affect the army they lead, as well. More strength equals – you guessed it – stronger troops. Strategy (or defense) allows the legend to lead more troops at once, and increase their defensive value. And Magic increases the life of the troops and the damage rate of artifacts.

One thing I was MASSIVELY pleased by was the fact that the population could take care of themselves. In Ikarian, you have to force-feed the idiots a ton of grapes all day long just so they remained happy and didn't run away. I'm glad that they can keep themselves entertained with their sticks and strings instead of drinking themselves silly at night.

The developers (called Ultizen, by the way) can really do some stuff with this. They can add some more depth, and more important choices, like maybe having different kinds of stone, each of which gives different defensive bonuses. For example, a type of stone we'll call "Cold Stone" is strong against Archers and Swordsmen, but crumbles against the charging Halberdiers and Charioteers. Nothing too big, but something to add to the game.

As I said in the first paragraph, War of Legends – and all games of the genre – is not for everyone. It is for those who want to be able to play something without having to actually play it. In short: In Runescape, you have to grind. In War of Legends, the game grinds for you. And for people who have college, lots of good books they'd rather read than play on a grind-game, or just happen to have a life, this game will certainly appeal. It gives the sense of ruling over an ancient city which only you can make bigger and better, and eventually take over the entire world. However, it is still in Beta, so hopefully the developers will take this time to add small tweaks to the game to give it something unique.