Etherlords II is an annoying game. It’s not annoying because the story isn’t worth giving a damn about. It isn’t annoying because the highest resolution for the graphics is 1024x768. It isn’t annoying because the voice acting makes the stuff in Resident Evil seem professional. No, it’s annoying because we love the combat. As strange as this sounds, we’ll explain: Etherlords II is an amalgam of various other genre themes such as strategy and role-playing thrown together in an attempt to create something new. It works every now and then, but the one consistent aspect is the combat. In short, it’s brilliant. Unfortunately it’s the one area where most of the effort has been put into. Thus, the rest of the game is a chore compared to the combat.