Pros: Nice plot, good textures and graphics
Cons: Not too original as far as gameplay

If you don't have this game and don't even like strategy games I suggest at least downloading the demo.
The whole caboodle is set in the fantasy world of Darien, ruled by an immortal king and his immortal family. The king decides to go away, and he leaves the land in the control of his siblings. He divides up the land into 4 separate regions, and each child controls a region. The four regions represent the four elements: fire, water, earth and air. The Evil two are fire and air. When you enter the story, the good guys Aramon and Venuna have made an alliance to fight Zhon and Taros. You take control of all four elements, and many more people within the story.

There are 48 chapters, or levels, each linked together by loads of small movies, although there is nothing moving about them. They are actually a series of static images, like a slideshow, with a voice talking over them, a la documentary. These seem to set the scene better than any other game I have played, and totally immerse you in it.

The gameplay is pretty much the same as in any other Real-Time strategy game, where you start off with some units, and you make buildings which in turn make units, and then you kill the other people. Well, that's the basics, anyway. In fact the chapters in Kingdoms often involve completing a mission, like escorting people, or destroying all the ships, or anything else.

One thing that immediately becomes apparent about TA Kingdoms is the graphics, and hence the strain on your PC. Everything is intricately modeled in 3D, and units slowly appear through swirling mist. It really is a beautiful game, but it also eats up RAM and processor time like no other game I have ever played before. When you have large numbers of units on the screen, especially if they are fighting, the frame rate crawls down to about 1 frame per second, and that is on my P350 with 128Mb RAM and a voodoo3 16Mb! Even loading up the chapters take a good few minutes.

The range of units is also unparalleled. There are over 160 unique units in the game, and you can even download more off the internet! There are special flying units, ships, offensive structures, cavalry, and many many more types, all of which have their own advantages and disadvantages, and you have to learn to use them in the most efficient way in order to proceed. This depth means that even when you are near the end of the game, you are still discovering new units or tactics to play with.

There is another 2 ways to play TA kingdoms, however. You can use the skirmish mode, which is basically the same as multiplayer, except that you fight computer controlled opponents, and of course the multiplayer mode. In these two modes you get to set all the options you could possibly wish to set before you tackle your opponent, and in the case of the skirmish mode, you had better give yourself as big an advantage as possible, because the AI behind the enemy is seriously smart. It could probably out-wit you! This means that you will probably find yourself playing a simulated multiplayer more often than actually playing real people, as it is just as much fun without the hassle.

Kingdoms comes bundled with a map editor, so you can make up your own levels to fight skirmishes or mulitplayer battles on, and this also gives it a little bit more lastability, as if it needed any more! All these options really do mean that you will lose a lot of sleep over this game, and you will still be playing it in many months to come.