Sunday Musings - Shadow Of The Horned Rat

I've tried my best to stay away from 90s PC gaming for these essays as best I can. But, as all things are circular, back to the well we go.

I recently bought myself Shadow of the Horned Rat (and Dark Omens) from GOG.com because I have a sickness and would much rather fight with a decade old strategy game than try to explore whatever Assassin's Creed is doing these days. This era is easily my formative time for gaming and there's a danger that the well is in fact brackish and undrinkable when I remember the cool clean water of my youth. The metaphor is over extended but it's a good reminder that nostalgia in general can be a dangerous thing.

However, to the point we race. Shadow Of The Horned Rat is glorious, great and gore-ridden.

The premise of the game itself is of course, quite simple. You begin as Morgan Bernhardt, the leader of mercenaries known The Grudgebringers* traveling across The Old World, completing missions and revelling in rewards. Your force grows the more successful you become and what begins as rag-tag infantry slowly begins to add warmachines and wizards (and importantly...Dwarfs). The story is simple enough, as the Skaven threaten the world whilst you brave heroes face the challenges and run them through with a steel stabber.

It's a game of micro-managment above all else, either of the troops as they gain experience or of the finances as it acuminates. Expereince means more powerful units, gold means more units and round and round it goes. Unit champions have the possibility of find magic items which pushes the deadly factor up another notch. However, and this is important, the gold is limited and soldiers will die. Replacing them costs, healing them costs and units not at full strength will run into difficulties fast. It's about here that the difficulty level of the games itself know as it ramps up fast. The level of care you need to take over your forces is not far off the Chao Garden or a Tamagotchi (Tamagothic?) but with such careful nurturing, you can form a bedrock of death dealing destruction to sally forth to victory. Until of course you don't and take an absolute pounding.

As strange as it sounds, strategy is absolutely the name of the game here. No Zergling rush to be found but instead finding what works best for you and running with it. Ranged, shield walls, glass cannons all have their place and can be used effectively as long as you build for it and know the limitations each plan is going to bring. You cannot overpower or barrel through any battle and the raw depth at play here is genuinely impressive given the year of release.

Speaking of the far distant past, the graphics do manage to hold up well. Yes, they are dated and somewhat muddy but they show obviously distinct units that are easily identifiable. The visceral experience of watching each battlefield is rewarding one.

In general, I've enjoyed going back to Shadow Of The Horned Rat, and it's been nice to see that in this case, the nostalgia has been justified. Of course, I need to try out Dark Omen next... so we will see how that goes.

As always, I remain

Adam

*Who are not Dwarfs