The setting is fifty years after the events of the first game. You can play as four different heroes, two who serve the Human armies and two who serve the Dark Legion. Following the fantasy standards, the later is packed with orcs, trolls, dark elves and creatures of that nature. Basically, you end up with four different stories as each story is told from the perspective of the hero you're playing. As you progress through the game you'll control more than just your hero unit and this is where the RTS elements come into play.

For the action sequences, I found the controls quite responsive. Fighting with your hero is a button smash fest, but the game allows for combinations that are a bit more effective than others. The loading screens will give you hints about those. I didn't see any major problems with the graphics, although for some of the storytelling sequences executed with the action engine, the developers tried to do some close-ups that made things look a bit too pixilated. Your hero is extremely detailed when it comes to polygons and although your troops are not as much in comparison, there's still enough detail packed into them to make them look quite good. I was impressed with how smoothly the engine handled the amount of characters that could be on the screen at the same time.

When it comes to controlling different units I think the developers did the best they could do with the limited amount of buttons in a console controller. Giving out orders takes time away from trying to keep your hero alive. When you switch to a unit that isn't controlled by the hero, the game's AI takes over and it certainly could do a much better job of controlling the character while I'm busy handing out orders. It'll take the standard gamer a bit of time to get comfortable with the interface to switch between units.

The game offers a couple of tutorials on how to control different types of units and I strongly suggest that the starting player goes through them to get a hang on how to play the game.

What limited control you have of the camera, though, I didn't feel was enough. This is particularly true when you're trying to find the leader of the enemy group you're fighting to take him or her out and you can't get a good view of the field around you. I guess, though, at the same time it adds a certain chaotic feeling to the battle, which is somewhat realistic all things considered.

As I've stated before, the art for the hero model can be quite detailed. At times I kind of felt the non-hero units looked all the same, but I guess it's to be expected considering that they are uniformed soldiers. This little detail didn't detract from the beauty of the game. The game also has a foggy feeling to it that meshes well with the war-torn environment it's trying to recreate.

The soundtrack for this game is quite interesting. Certainly influenced by the heavy metal genre at times it can hit the mark and at others it just doesn't seem to fit. I've always felt that heavy metal is very epic in how it sounds and thus it's very appropriate for the battle sequences. However, there were certain scenes in the game that could have benefited from something a bit lighter and more fantasy oriented. The special effects, on the other hand, are spot on and when you're fighting as your hero you feel like you're there, in the middle of a chaotic battlefield with enemies coming at you from all sides.

The voice acting isn't bad, but it isn't great either. I think part of the problem might have been the translation of the script or the writing. The voices delivering the lines are certainly appropriate but the lines themselves are kind of shaky. The tone used to deliver some of those lines doesn't seem to match the setting for the lines. As detailed as the character models are, the mouths are barely animated, or not at all, and when close-ups are done to show characters talking, it destroys some of the immersion factor.

The depth of the game play in this game is definitely surprising. On the surface, yes, it's an action oriented button smash-fest. However, there is much more to it than just that. As you advance further in the game, you end up commanding more and more units. You start having to consider how to best use the units you have, or even which units to take into a particular scenario. Strategy increasingly plays a bigger role in the experience and if you don't catch up with it, you'll be repeating some missions over and over again.

All that said there are some issues that detract a bit from the experience. Due to the limitation in terms of buttons that the Xbox controller has, the controls are awkward when it comes to switching between different units in battle. Furthermore, when you leave your hero alone and he happens to be engaged, the AI for him doesn't do as good of a job as you would do, even if you had no idea of what you're doing and you just smash all the buttons hoping something will happen. This becomes a huge issue later in the game and adds artificial difficulty to the missions, since letting your hero get killed is a big no-no.

For the action sequences, fighting is pretty straightforward. Really, the game expects you to try and find the leader of a unit when in melee combat, as defeating the leader will defeat the unit. This is easier said than done, way easier in fact. Fighting can be so chaotic that finding the leader in a sea of enemies is just impossible at times, unless the leader is a hero as well. Still, the fighting is above all fun, and really that's all I can ask of it.

With four different heroes you can play, there's a lot of value in one disc here. You'll have quite a number of hours of game play and the story is interesting enough that you might want to play all characters to get their perspectives on what's going on.

Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders offers a nice blend of mindless button smashing and strategy. I don't know that I'd recommend it for those that are just looking for one or the other, though. This game is both and to play it, you need to play both aspects of it. Still, this is a great buy for the holidays and will give you a small cinematic fantasy fix to keep you going for a while.