Banish Land

Overview

"Banish Land" is a browser-based strategy MMO that allows players to acquire land, build buildings and hire units and heroes.

Features

• Easy-to-understand tutorial and gameplay mechanics
• Different units lead to different possible strategies for quests and missions
• Unique hero system with dungeons and quests

Review

While there are a few great browser-based MMOs out there, there are even more awful-to-mediocre ones. While "Lords of Evil" falls under the "great" umbrella and "The Legacy of Holy Castle" falls at the upper end of mediocre (just shy of great), the third browser title in WebMMO's portal, "Banish Lands," falls in at the bottom of the list.

The big selling point of a resource-based browser game is, usually, the fact that you can play it for a few minutes, and be all set until the next day. Construct some stuff, wait it out, and check in 9 or 12 hours to do what you want to do next. In "Banish Land," though, there's a lot more time involvement needed.

Buildings, research, and equipment is manufactured at a much quicker pace than almost any other big resource game I've played. The result? You'll have to keep the game open throughout the day if you want to truly compete.

Perhaps the most unique feature of the game“ the hero units and the dungeons/quests you can send them to€“ are also the downfall, as most of them will take about an hour of real life time to complete. The other downside is that you can only send one person to each instance; so as you begin getting multiple heroes, to keep them all upgraded and equal to your kingdom, you're going to have to send someone in to an instance each hour.

Numbers also bog down the game. Now, before you go and say that sounds odd, keep this in mind: instead of real life time, construction and tasks is mapped out as in-game months. In addition, things cost a lot, and you'll quickly get thousands of units in your command. This makes the game seem like it ramps up too quickly, and within a week you'll be spending 100+ in-game months on some research, and frequently sending out groups of 800+ units on each and every quest or dungeon run.

Outside of those complaints, "Banish Land" is as cookie cutter as these types of games get. You build buildings, attack other players, accrue wealth and troops, and compete to be number one. While "Holy Castle" suplements some average gameplay elements with some incredibly fine-tuned time management and micromanagement, and while "Lords of Evil" adds in some great flash visuals and a lot of lore and diversity, "Banish Land" does neither.

If you're looking for a new browser game to play at work or school, do yourself a favor and try "Lords of Evil" or "Holy Castle" first. And, if you've already played those two to death, go ahead and sign up for "Banish Land." Just don't be shocked if you stop checking in on your virtual kingdom after a couple of days.