Sacrifice

aka: Sacrifice: Im Auftrag Der Götter, Xisheng
Moby ID: 2861
Windows Specs
Buy on Windows
$7.99 new on Steam

Description official descriptions

In this Real Time Strategy game, the player plays a wizard who escaped his own ruined world, only to arrive to a world who has quarreling gods, each trying to become the most powerful. On each of the different levels of the game, the Wizard can choose another God to support, and according to that God you'll get new spells and creatures. After finishing the game, each player will have his own unique set of spells.

As said before, this game is a real time strategy game, but unlike the traditional Top-Down view, it features a third-person view (much like Tomb Raider or Oni), and emphasizes combat rather than resources management. The most important resource, Souls, which is used to summon creatures, can only be obtained through combat- and there's a limited number of souls on the map.

The game's multiplayer option is very similar to Blizzard's Battle.Net- you can log on to the company's chat room and find new players to play with. You can either choose a God to serve (and get all of his creatures) or load one of your Single-player wizards, so you'll have your own unique set.

Spellings

  • Жертвоприношение - Russian spelling
  • 牺牲 - Chinese spelling (simplified)

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Credits (Windows version)

160 People (145 developers, 15 thanks) · View all

Producer
Lead Programming
Tools/AI Programming
Lead Design
Level / Scenario Design
Art Director
Assistant Producer
Story and Game Script Writer
Voiceovers Director
Character Technology
Character Tools
Front End & Installer
Lead Character Modeler
Lead Character Animator
Primary Scenery Artist
Spell FX Artist
Character Conversion
Addition Characters and Modeling
Additional Animation
Special Thanks
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 82% (based on 39 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 59 ratings with 6 reviews)

An absolutely amazing game worth checking out now! (might as well, saw it for 5 bucks with some other game at CompUSA)

The Good
Well, what can I say? This is an amazing blend of elements. At its heart it's a RTS, but you control your avatar from a 3rd person perspective and do all your commanding from there. Every level you can choose which side you want to play on (there are 5 with varied abilities and units). These choices affect the storyline. The game itself is very actionny, with lots of summoning and moving around. The graphics are STILL lush and wonderful, 3 whole years after this game's release. The battles are frantic, with much bloodshed and powerful explosions. And the manual needs to be the size of a small novel to describe all the units!

The Bad
The soul-gathering for resources gets annoying after a while. Defeating the enemy is a major pain in the ass (you gotta destroy their altar), but it's not really a fault - I just really suck at RTS's. Some later maps start out instantly with no time to think - just summon lotsa units.

The Bottom Line
An action/RTS that should be on every gamer's hard-drive!

Windows · by Archagon (108) · 2003

Still kicks a** a decade later

The Good
- the graphics are terrific, even ten years later. I've run this with an ATI Radeon 4650 with all the game graphics cranked up to max at widescreen monitor resolution. Not the world's most powerful GPU, it's still far beyond anything the designers had available to them. The game still looks gorgeous. Toward the end of any campaign, when the maps get huge, you can climb mountains and realize you can see for miles, and those tiny moving dots are really giant beasts that are so very, very far away...for the moment...

  • all kinds of spells, and the biggest ones are really big. Those tiny moving dots are really giant beasts that have gotten caught up in huge tornado and dragged way up into the sky, aren't they? Say, aren't they MY beasts...? And yipes, now it's got me! What a fascinating view, looking down at the spinning world so very far below! Unfortunately we're all going to fall down in a minute...ouch!

  • a variety of paths through the game (although some are definitely easier than others. Ya wanna make it easy on yourself? Always go with James. Play your cards right and you can even get a dragon companion).

  • the missions have some variety. Some are scramble as fast as you can, others require settling in and having the patience to chip away at the enemy bit by bit

  • a cult following has put lots of YouTube videos on this game revealing all kinds of things I didn't find the first time I completed it. So I can go back and do even better!

    The Bad
    - the first time I played it I gave up in frustration because the manual said "always secure your mana fountains" and then I ran into a mission where the opposing side began to blow up my mana fountains (and my creatures!) with a kind of volcano machine I couldn't figure out how to beat. Grrr! I hate games I can't win!

  • some of the spells don't seem to be worth bothering with, and some of the creatures seem quite useless. Or maybe I just never figured out how to use them properly

  • it's a bit disconcerting that the final level boss "doesn't play by the same rules" that govern the rest of the game. On the other hand, that makes it quite a challenge, doesn't it?

    The Bottom Line
    Technically amazing and fun to play, so it's frustrating that you don't appreciate as much as I do.

Windows · by anton treuenfels (34) · 2011

Fantastic game not represented by its sales

The Good
- amazing engine, well used and performed magnificently. Stable.
- well presented - graphics are quirky, colourful and original
- good level building tools - people made some great levels in Sac.
- the game was non-linear and had a high replayability. I finished it 3 times over, taking different paths.


The Bad
- multiplayer suffered from drop-outs and a lack of player base
- no SDK released for modding (great opportunity here)
- once you lose your mana fountains then you basically lose the game - it's really hard to recover
- the powerful creatures dominate to the point that it's not worth creating any other


The Bottom Line
Think "magic the gathering" in real time with fantastic spells and creatures. You are in the game as the wizard, so you can attack/be attacked yourself. Summon creatures to fight for you, and rain down death with powerful magicks.

An interesting story coupled with unique presentation and great technology makes for a fantastic experience.

It's a shame that they didn't sell well enough to warrant a sacrifice 2 or an SDK for sac. It was also a shame that the multiplayer was never that popular.

Windows · by neko_ (5) · 2003

[ View all 6 player reviews ]

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Sacrifice appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Engine

Did you know that Sacrifice was one of the first games to ever implement a scalable engine? That means that it would look better on better computers.

References

Everybody knows Shiny's Earth Worm Jim, but nobody in our world ever heard about the Earth God James and his powerful bovine spells... Until now.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • April 2001 (Issue #201) – Strategy Game of the Year
  • GameSpy
    • 2000 – Special Award for Best Genre Bender
  • PC Player
    • Issue 01/2001 – Most Original Game in 2000

Information also contributed by NeoMoose

Analytics

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Related Games

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Sacrifice
Released 2009 on Nintendo DS
Loki: Heroes of Mythology
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Bengal: Game of Gods
Released 2006 on Windows
Abyss of the Sacrifice
Released 2010 on PSP, 2020 on Nintendo Switch, Windows
Trial of the Gods: Ariadne's Fate
Released 2010 on Windows
Karma: Immortal Wrath
Released 1997 on Windows
The Sultan's Labyrinth: A Royal Sacrifice
Released 2010 on Windows, iPad, iPhone
Hermes: War of the Gods
Released 2019 on Windows

Related Sites +

  • Sacrifice Casts a Spell on Mac OS X
    An Apple Games article about the Macintosh version of Sacrifice, with commentary being provided by employees of MacPlay (October, 2001).
  • Sacrifice Center
    Look up news, polls, interviews, forums, and game information on this site.

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 2861
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Adam Baratz.

Macintosh added by Kabushi.

Additional contributors: El-ad Amir, Unicorn Lynx, jaXen, Stratege, Zeppin, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack.

Game added December 29, 2000. Last modified March 4, 2024.