Let us take a quick examination of what Europa is, what it delivers, and some insight into what makes it so fresh. A title that is, ‘a step outside of the traditional gaming box.’ At first glance Europa 1400 seems to contain many system/game engine feature’s that mimic classic releases such as Diablo, Fallout, Myst, and War Craft But let me assure you that would be a quick judgment of a unique title. This game is a simulated life style based on the character you build.

"What aspects do you get to control?" you ask? You are given control over your establishment, gaining political offices, marrying a spouse of your choice, dueling, drinking mead like any alcohol crazed European, engaging in commerce on a strategic level, constructing workshops, homes, and even upgrading all of them. But underneath the amazing graphics, solid programming, decent 3d character models, and revolutionary game concepts lies a brand new way of gaming.

Yet as you become lost in the detail that is this “simulated” life of Europe title, you will realize just how far JoWooD Productions went to make this glimmer like a star.

The game starts like any traditional role playing game; but trust me, it’s far from it. When first selecting the town you will be in, as well as game difficulty and game mode, you get the option of ‘history’ and ‘no history’ mode. With this feature you will learn of actual events that took place during the time your simulated lifestyle is unfolding. I found this feature to greatly increase the feel of realism. Next select your mother (selecting her occupation) and your father (selecting his occupation). Then distribute your points on your stats.

When you start you are given two basic buildings which vary based on your occupation. The first building you will start with are one of the following: The Blacksmith gets a foundry, Joiner given a Joiner Workshop, Stone mason receives The Bricklayer, Alchemist getting The Tinctury, Landlord comes with a Tavern, and naturally a Thief with his Smugglers Hole. The second structure you get, a home. The functions that are given to you in these structures are based on which occupation you have selected. Perhaps you care to be the noble Blacksmith? Working with his apprentices, hammering the items you’ve selected to make. Now at this point you’ll need to hire a second man to send out your cart to sell these items. All that’s left is bring back more materials to repeat the process. Keep in mind the games works as in real life, your men will head for home as it nears 8P.M., only to come back to work as it reaches 8A.M.

As Game Time (GT) nears midnight you go home to rest as well. In between this time you can spend AP’s (Action Points) on training your character’s various skills that help him throughout the course of the game. Much like Fallout These AP’s are spent doing actions. Such as tearing down posts on the board for all to see, and everything else you will have your character do.

What makes Europa’s Gameplay so solid and unique is the magnitude of options you are given and the choices you will see as you advance. Perhaps you would like to spy on another family? Not only is this possible, but you can then report all that you learn and go to court to testify on the appropriate date. This leads you to a cutscene showing the trial. Better yet; is its occupation system. Imagine you want to be a Treasurer? This also is a reality. Not only can you skim the money coming into your town, you can petition other people in the town out of office, and even set the prices everyone pays for rent. Not good with numbers eh? Well perhaps the office title of Town Servant is your cup of tea? The amount of occupations is numbered at 15 plus. This doesn’t include the jobs you can do as well. What I’ve mentioned here is only a brief introduction to what Europa 1400 offers with its occupations. As I would run on for a few months about just how great and fresh this system is. As I can only scratch the surface to this aspect, we will take a closer look at the other features.

On every diamond, there are some ruff edges. As for the controls, they don’t harm this game what-so-ever. Actually the function keys (F1, F2, etc.) Act as quick entrances to the buildings if you set them to do so. This enables you to save time moving around. But load the tutorial, and you will know exactly where I’m going with this. A lot of the time the tutorial dialogue will say “Continue” at the bottom, yet you have to click the button on the far right (or Right Click) to escape. This had me confused for a bit. I must have clicked continue 10 times. Then finally after a few seconds of mouse button mashing I got out. Only to be stuck in another dialogue not disappearing from a click on “Continue”. In the end the Tutorial Mode is very good, very rounded, easy to use, and helps a lot.

Another bug happens when you click ‘Fast Time”, this will pass time faster for you. But alas, you cannot watch your productions go in fast speed. They just freeze where they’re at, and the clock animation speeds up. This is irritating if you’re using the option to get your products finished faster. Load time wasn’t too fast, but I wouldn’t say it was outrageously slow either. I was playing the game with a video card 2x better then what’s recommended. 64megs recommended. Had the load times been any slower, I would have been more on the complaining side. Please note this in your purchase plans.

Sit back in your seat, your going for a ride! The graphics sure don’t get any better than you’ll be seeing here. The town is shown in an overhead, and slightly tilted view. Everything you will see is completely three-dimensional, resembling a Blizzard title named War Craft. Now not only are there rain animations, you get snowy weather as well. When someone’s house is on fire during a snowy season, the fire looks amazingly realistic. (Dang those dirty saboteurs!) Of course there are shiny summer days ahead! Even the tiny little figures running around the town are in a ‘super high-resolution’ rendering. Once you enter a building, everything changes to a two-dimensional view, which uses a 3d backdrop image, for mouse interaction.

Now overall I was stunned. But when I see the character models as an overall product of the graphical side, one word sticks in my head, ‘lacking.’ Maybe rendered in Poser, maybe not? But they are very pixilated. Normally I wouldn’t gripe about this. It was a minor detail.

The music in Europa hit a bulls eye. Even the sounds are on. Both sound/music have a colonial theme. I can’t say, "man, that blew me away" though, the music wasn’t ground breaking, and I wouldn’t listen to it outside of the game. On the flip side, it wasn’t all together bad either. Clean, digitally mastered, high quality music and sound. Best feature yet: The ability to turn the sound and music off.

Personally I find music like this dreary. Understand that the next person may have a field day with such music though. I rather listen to some “P.R.O.J.E.C.T. PAT”, or even the radio while playing away my hearts content. Good music yes, enough to interest a player in using it during play? I don’t know if I can say that. Included in the game options is the music/sound/master levels as we have grown accustomed to having.

Currently there isn't anyone on the servers. A pity, I really wanted to play this game multiplayer to get the 'complete' feel for it. I have been trying to play online for the last few days. No users/servers on as of yet. So Multiplayer I don’t know exactly how it measures up. The random events and different ways you can run and/or ruin your characters life will add greatly. Yes, you will be kept content for quite some time. Especially with all the occupations and office mixes you could make. This is the key to what makes Europa a game that will evolve in its own world. Letting you find different ways to simulate a lifestyle. Mix the online ingredient; and you have the recipe for a title that equals pure addiction.

Worth a look is the ‘assignment mode’. Where you can select a traditional difficulty: very easy, easy, normal, hard, and very hard. Here you can work on tasks as a team, or in competition with others. For example getting a rank of ‘such-and-such’, and holding it for ‘so-an-so’ long. Yet again this will keep you glued to the game. With that keep in mind you can do ‘free game’, and strive solely to advance your career.