Savage: The Battle for Newerth

The Good
I came, I saw, I didn't end up seeing much more after that. Savage claims to combine multiple genres, that of Real Time Strategy, that of a First Person Shooter, and that of an MMORPG. Fortunately for the player, they'll only generally be keeping track of one of these elements at once. Unfortunately for the player, if the Real Time Strategy element, the most important one in this game, goes bad, everything else the game has to offer goes down the tubes. A great game of Savage involves both sides going at it in what seems like an endless barrage of flying mortars, siege engines, towering beasts, and swinging, pointy pieces of metal. The game has a variety of weapons for each side, be they beasts or humans. The humans weapons are a cross between high tech electrical weapons and some more "basic" (though lethal) technologies like hatchets and crossbows. In general, most of your fights won't end with long range shooting, they end with a brutal man to man melee. The beasts are different from the humans mostly in their arsenal. Rather than conventional weaponry, they use magic. It makes sense, given that you probably won't see a werewolf looking monster weilding a minigun. The beasts weapons seem to end up doing about the same thing human weapons do - they whittle down enemies so you can hack them up in close range. When it works, the RTS feature of Savage is pretty cool. Building structures and mining gold may not be the most exciting of tasks, but they sure are rewarding. There's nothing quite like turning a big holographic looking structure into a fully functional structure of death (unless you've played the Half Life mod Natural Selection). The game is autopiloted by a computer commander until a human steps up to the plate. The computer commander does an okay job in running the show, but it is no match for a real live human behind the wheel. It is the lack of the human commander that will end up making your game a snore. The niche filled by commanders is somewhat small, and there doesn't seem to be a great way to train new commanders within the Savage universe. Nevertheless, there is a good number of players willing to take the helm and pilot your species to victory.

The Bad
Sadly, there are also many times where there is not. Savage's biggest downfall is one of its greatest strengths: the RTS system. Because of the way the game works, a player with a great deal of skill, but not as many upgrades as a player who is merely mediocre or even bad, ends up dead. The skill of the players has an effect on the outcome, but there comes to be a point where all of the masters in the game can't defeat their supercharged enemies with the ingenious commander. At this point, Savage stops being entertaining. Fighting a losing battle is wearisome. Lets face it - the soldiers didn't have fun at the Alamo. And bet your bottom dollar it isn't that much fun being ransacked by 5 story tall elephant beasts when all you have to defend yourself is a bow and arrow. Personally, Savage got a little boring shortly after buying the full game. While I had a blast playing the demo, the flair of the game wore off more quickly than I'd have liked. A new patch up from the makers that adds a significant amount of content didn't really spark my interest much. The game's "MMORPG" elements are barely existent. Your characters can level up and kill various game for gold and such (which they can spend to buy weapons), but this part of the game doesn't work to make the game more addictive. In an MMORPG, half the fun is watching your character grow. In Savage, you'll get stronger for sure, but the next round, you're back to level one. There's no real drive to kill the ostrich beasts other than for the necessity of gold. As a player, the RTS elements can become more like doing chores than playing a game. Building stuff is satisfying, but so is mowing the lawn. Are you in a rush to mow the lawn yet?

The Bottom Line
I had fun playing Savage for sure. I'll go back and play it again from time to time, but it's not as addictive as I'd hoped. Still, I don't feel like my money was wasted on the game. I encourage everyone interested in the game to give the demo a shot - it's a great sampling of the full game. The only warning I have is that you might want to hold yourself off from the full game - it adds a lot of content, for sure, but after the first week of Savage, check and see how you feel about the game. If you crave more bash and smash, more build, more variety, and more Real Time Strategy Shooter, by all means, pick the game up.