There will be some people out there that will recognise the title of this game instantly. And most of those will have been (or wanted to have been) Atari ST or Amiga owners at some point in their life, as this game is a remake of what some would consider a gaming classic on said machines. The rest just need to get out more.

The game is quite faithful in its recreation (or so I'm told, I was in primary school when the original game came out), but for those that missed out on the original's release 17 years ago, I will give a little explanation. You play as the legendary Robin Hood, as he is charged with conquering England, and overthrowing the evil King John, who has declared himself King in the absence of the rightful monarch, Richard the Lionheart. Richard has been captured, and is being held for ransom. Obviously Robin's antics stray somewhere outside the original legend, but I'll let that pass.

   

So, Robin has to set about conquering England and collecting enough gold to pay Richard's ransom. Obviously, Robin cannot just conjure an army from nothing, but he can call on Little John to recruit soldiers, which also needs gold. The game centres around a map screen, on which you can see the various counties, and the different warring factions, who would all like to claim the crown for themselves. At the start of each 'turn' on the map, you can buy more troops, or send Marian to spy on a county. After that, you choose an action to perform, which leads you to play one of several mini games.

The first mini game you will play is the archery raid, which is little more than a glorified shooting gallery. Soldiers and wagons ride by, and you attempt to shoot them with your legendary archery skills. Each one killed earns you gold (and takes away gold from whoever you are raiding), with certain units earning you more than others. Some soldiers will be able to shoot back, and taking three hits will end your raid unsuccessfully. There's not a lot to do here other than aim, shoot, and duck out of the way when you're shot at. A more rewarding type of raid is the castle raid, whereby Robin fights his way into a castle to steal as much gold as he can - although if beaten at any point, Robin will be thrown into the dungeon, and will lose turns on the map. The sword-fighting engine is very simple, but not very rewarding.

You can host a jousting tournament, in which Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe will compete on your behalf. In this you can compete with other lords for wagers of gold and land. Jousting involves hammering two buttons to build up speed, and them aiming your lance at the opposing knight, in a first person view. It's fun, but I found that as soon as I found the 'sweet spot' for the lance, I was an unstoppable lancing machine!.

   

When you attack a county that has troops in it, you will have to fight a battle. Again, this is another mini game, whereby both sides line up on either side of a set of channels. You can send troops down these channels to attack the units at the other side of each channel, whilst getting your ranged units to fire over the top as well. The problem with this is that everything moves a little too quickly to organise tactically, and you just have to fling troops and missiles across at the opposition, hoping that your superior numbers will make them crumble. Although you can set up troops to guard other units (at least until the guard units are killed/run away), you don't have any way of organising the initial deployment, meaning that valuable but soft units like catapults can be left exposed for the enemy. It's somewhat annoying, as you have to play this mini game to progress. Slightly more interesting is the siege game, which appears when you attack a county with a castle. Simply put, you set up your catapults around the enemy castle, and have 4 days to do as much damage as possible to ease your way in the main battle.

The trouble with Defender of the Crown is that the game suffers by trying very hard to emulate the original. Games have moved on in the last 17 years, and so, while the developer may have wanted to resurrect an old classic without just bastardising the name, they've stayed too faithful to the original, and so limited the scope of the game. The game is fun, and the scripting and voice acting for the surrounding plot is top drawer, but the whole thing gets boring a little too quickly, and would probably be best left for a nostalgic evening rental.