HEG - Sacrafice Review

The Second Coming of Real Time Strategy

I remember the days when RPG's were just going down the drain in popularity, and many thought the genre dead. Until a little known company (at that time) Black Isle came along with two shining gems named Fallout, and Baldur's Gate. They redefined what a rich storyline and compelling gameplay meant and brought the genre back to its former glory. And in that same sense RTS was beginning to see a decline being that every RTS started to follow the same drab concept over and over with little much on the horizon for a reprieve. Enter Shiny Entertainment ready to revitalize RTS's with a genuine classic to thrill others for hours on end.

The game starts you off as a wizard without a master. You can choose one of five gods and change at almost any time to which one you would like to help. Sometimes you may not be able to go to one god because they are upset you are fighting against there cause, at other times they will side with you and allow penance for your previous actions and allow you to help them.

Depending on which god you choose will depend on your spell selection and the arsenal of creations at your disposal. You get to choose between Persephony, goddess of nature, James (who looks a little like a well know worm with the same name), god of the earth, Stratos, supreme ruler of the sky and heavens, Pyro, the evil god of fire, and finally Charnel, god of strife. As you progress through the game and choose different gods you are able to save that character's spell list to be able to use in multiplayer.

Resource management is not as mind numbing as in most RTS games as it is done though the use of mana. With the ability to capture the mana generating fountains you have plenty of resources to be able to cast spells and create creatures, but there is a catch. You have a limit to your number of creature by the number of souls you have. To gain more you need to capture and convert enemy souls, which is no easy task. The more souls you are able to convert, the larger your army becomes and the sooner your enemy will be defeated. As you gain more manaliths it also becomes more apparent that you regain the mana to cast elaborate spells much faster. By limiting resource management to almost the bare essentials and making it very simple, more of the game's focus is on creature use and battling, as well as utilizing your spells to their full potential.

As you soon find out the games strategy with creatures is complex yet simple at the same time. There are three basic creatures between all the gods. You have your ranged creatures effective in taking down flying units. Flying creatures to take out the melee ones. And finally the melee who are best used against the ranged. Because of this simple formula most of the creatures are painstakingly balanced, yet different in their own rite. James has ranged creatures that can cast a stone freezing spell upon his enemies where as Persephony has a ranged creature of the same level that can cast a healing spell upon your allies. It is the special abilities of each creature that give it a sense of uniqueness. And in that same sense allows you to have a wide array of spells and creatures at your disposal if you choose different gods throughout your single player campaigns. Would you like a healing creature and spell, go to Persephony, how about a mix of disease and pestilence, go to charnel for a round, maybe you want some fire, lets help out Pyro a round or two. The only downfall to the switching of gods is if you may be limited in your choices in the later campaigns. Yet the possibilities almost seem limitless.

One of the things I noticed most about the game was the fact that you start off in third person on a 3D world. Most RTS's are known to pit you on top of the action, as a god would look upon his followers. Shiny took a different approach and makes it work well by pitting you inside the action. Being right up in the front of the battles. The only downfall to this tactic that I noticed is that it becomes exceedingly difficult to navigate through the map when your enemy is halfway across the map and you hear the message that your buildings are under attack.

Once you've completed the game once Shiny has included many options to get you hoping to keep this game alive for months to come. They included a map editor called Scapex that comes with a wide array of options to choose from. Everything including raising and lowering terrain, limitless texture sets, and even importing your own sounds to accompany text. It is a very simple tool with a lot of options so that you can create a multiplayer or single player map to share over the Internet.

The graphics and sound are amazing in game and are some of the best ever seen. Even the screenshots don't do this game any justice compared to seeing it in real time. There are a variety of terrains from lush forest's to dry deserts. There are options to tone down the graphics for those with low-level machines. But if you have the horsepower be prepared to stare in awe at the gorgeous scenery Shiny has pimped out for this game. The voice over acting is also quite refreshing because as of late voice over acting seems to be a bit lax in most games.

Multiplayer options are very robust as well since Shiny has spent so much time in cultivating and fine-tuning the gameplay. You can play online between friends, IPX LAN, or on a local game against a computer opponent. It allows the game to have an ultimate replay value and has definitely put the icing on the cake in terms of making this game a classic.

If your looking for an innovative and fun RTS that has hints of an action game built in do not pass this game up. Not only do I believe that this has revitalized the RTS genre and raised the bar in terms of what to look for, it has also provided a breadth of different players that this game to appeal to. For top notch sound, graphics, gameplay, and story this game if a must have for any gamer.