RuneScape:Wiki Post/Editorials/Minigame Review - Castle Wars

Hey guys, Mirror here. I'm going to be starting a series, called Minigame Review. Every issue, I shall review a new minigame (or minigames) until I have covered every fun little game in RuneScape. I hope you enjoy.

To review minigames, one must understand what minigames are first. Now, after reading this, I'm sure you're thinking "Are you kidding? Everyone knows what minigames are!" But I don't believe that's the case. Everyone looks at minigames from different perspectives. So, what is a minigame?


 * Leevclarke: A minigame is a game within a game.
 * Chaos Monk: A minigame is a collaboration of players getting together usually for a common good or goal.
 * Vex 327: Really, a game inside of a game.

As you can see, the definition of a minigame differs among players. For me, I define a minigame as a game inside a game. But what makes minigames worth playing? Why not just play the regular game? Why do we play minigames?


 * Leevclarke: I play minigames for a fun way to earn experience (XP), mostly. I always prefer to earn XP rather than coins, and free items (such as runes) are a bonus.
 * Chaos Monk: I play for the skill training, practice, and to talk mostly.
 * Vex 327: I play for the great rewards. They're also pretty fun.

While a few players may say that they play for "fun," it is rare to find a player without impossibly high levels playing minigames solely for fun (although, it is possible). And while these minigames are very fun, people play them to get something out of them. Whether it's easy experience in skills, coins, or items that help get faster experience in skills, there are few that do more than go through the motions of minigames. But if you embrace the minigame, then these games within a game can truly be "fun". That's the goal of this series. To help you have fun with every minigame. And I'll be having lots of fun along with you.

Now, I'm going to start with a classic minigame. Good versus Evil, Blue versus Red, Saradomin versus Zamorak, in a classic game of – you know it – capture the flag. Castle Wars is perhaps the simplest minigame in RuneScape, probably because everyone who plays it has likely played its real-life counterpart at some point in their lives. The aim is easy: capture your opponents flag, bring it back to your base, and make sure your opponent doesn't do the same to you. Do this as many times as you can within a time frame of 20 minutes. Oh, and don't die. The game doesn't give you any runes or arrows, and won't return any to you after the game is over. You also cannot bring any non-combat items into the game, but everything combat related is allowed. The team with the most points (earned from successfully capturing a flag) at the end of the time limit wins.

At the beginning of this review, I had not played Castle Wars once. By the end, I will have played it once. That's all anyone needs for a legitimate review. Whatever the game impresses on you, shows its flaws and advantages. Since I wasn't sure how to play, I went where I always go when I don't know about something in RuneScape - the RuneScape Wiki.

After reading up, I was ready to begin. I won't go over all the specifics of the arena, notably the giant catapult, stepping stones, collapsible rocks, and middle island, but you know where to find them if you want to read up. Upon entering, there are several items you can use, located in a supply room. You can only use those non-combat items provided in the game. There are bandages which heal 10% of your Hitpoints, climbing ropes for climbing enemy castles, barricades to slow down opponents, and possibly block them, pickaxes to cave in your opponents with collapsible rocks, tool-kits to repair broken catapults and doors, explosives to blow up barricades and collapse rocks (which can only be used once) and to commit suicide, buckets to put out fires, rocks as ammunition for the catapult, and tinderboxes for setting fires to your barricades and the catapults.

Being the simplest minigame, it has so many tactics and roles to fulfill, and if I listed them all it would take a long time. Besides, I only have a combat level of 68, and the wiki recommends playing Castle Wars at level 75 and up unless you only want the rewards. Naturally, I ignored this, and I'll be trying to fulfill every role, although I won't be able to do over half of them. Luckily, it's a safe minigame, so I won't be losing anything. After waiting in a room with a bunch of people who had all stolen my fashion idea for the day, the game began.

I'm not sure if I set up any barricades, because I learned after it was too late that there was a maximum of 10 per team. I made a few runs for the flag, all unsuccessful. Otherwise, the game was quite uneventful, with me dying about every other minute, but having a bit of fun nonetheless, defending my empty flag holder from enemies. Anyway, my team won! After the game exploded in post-game lag (everyone ran out of the room at once!) I saw my reward: 2 tickets. Which was worth absolutely nothing. The rewards in the game are a series of decorative armour and weapons, which can be worn or displayed in a Player-owned house (usually reserved for display). The most expensive armour costs 600 tickets for each item. With the maximum reward of 2 tickets per game, how much time will I be spending playing Castle Wars for the rewards. But what do some of the more experienced players think of it?


 * Leevclarke: I don't really like it... I want more Castle Wars reward tokens though. So I can put the armour into my house.
 * Chaos Monk: An oldie but goodie. Usually good, until people collapse the cave.
 * Vex 327: To be honest, it's boring. I'm not really into those "mass player-versus-player" games.

Well... it looks like I have to try this again at a higher level. My final rating for Castle Wars is: 8 barricades out of 10. See you next issue!