Merlin : Quest for the Mortaeus & Camelot Defense

It's only been 10 years and already the BBC are remodelling the Merlin legend, Sam Neill would be outraged. What has 10 years done for the show? Well it now focuses on Arthur and we get some shiny ‘Web 2.0' content including the obligatory flash game tie-ins. 

Loosely modelled around the episodes the two games; Quest for the Mortaeus and Camelot Defense play with established game types; wall climbing and ‘Tower Defense'. In Quest for the Mortaeus you play as Arthur as he attempts to climb the cave wall in order to reach the Mortaeus flower to heal the poisoned Merlin. Along the way you must kill the cave's inhabitants and eventually defeat Nimue (this does not feature in the episode although perhaps it's how Michelle Ryan came to need surgery in the Bionic Woman)

Gameplay is simple enough but it's a mystery why Arthur can only use his sword in his right hand. It makes killing enemies from the left tricky. Developers FISH IN A BOTTLE have included innovative features like using the mouse to draw runic symbols to heal Merlin (similar to Darwinia). However the rigidity with which you must stick to the patterns is odd given that this is a game primarily for children. Fortunately when you switch between screens the game pauses so you can just ignore the harder spells and use three easier ones instead. Reach the end and finish the laughably easy boss and you get congratulated and encouraged to play again for more points. Fat chance, I'd rather crawl through an actual cave infested with spiders.

Camelot Defense is a much better game, taking the Warcraft 3 ‘Tower Defense' format, it adds the previously established mouse to cast spells mechanic and simplifies it in a way that is more suitable for its intended audience. It does however get annoyed if you attempt to go back on your pattern and ignores it, which is a pain. Instead of gold drops from enemies they leave red gems that fill up your meter. Each level of the meter increases the potency of the tower you can build, most are well thought out but the Earth tower seems useless.

The action is spread over three stages with a number of levels in each stage. The ability to erase towers and rebuild them is nice as it gives the action more flow. This means that if a creature breaks past your main chokehold then you can catch them later. It can also work tactically too as you have a maximum meter level which doesn't allow overflow. Removing towers and picking up gems needs to be well timed to succeed. Varying levels mean sometimes you need to erase stronger, slower towers to tackle the weak but quick enemies. This is a more challenging game which requires multiple plays and a battle plan, which is unexpected in a tie-in game.

Fans of the show should give Tower Defense a try and if you have kids let them play Quest for Mortaeus but adults should give it a miss.