ShadowShrike
Reviews
Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings (Windows)
Definitely the best RTS to date. Nothing can match it.
The Good
Age of Empires was so good that when I heard about Kings, I was a bit confused-- how could it get any better? Here in AoE you had smoothly animated, realistic units, varied civilizations, epic pitched battles, and an expansion pack that added to the fun.
But it did get better. AoK is clearly a gem right from the get-go. The graphics have been greatly enhanced. They are still flat sprites, but Age of Kings uses 2d graphics better than any other game I have ever played. You hardly ever see a clipping error, IE a catapolt wheel running through a house (which is painfuly common in other 2d RTSs). Another thing few people know is that the sprites were only in 256 color, a choice the devs made to keep performance optimal. Well, I didn't even realize this until I was told!
So many things have been expanded, fixed, and polished since AoE I really don't know where to start. One of the major ones, however, is scale-- no longer are building either 2 or 4 times as big as cavalry; no, now trees stand as high as they should, barracks are properly large, and castles tower above all before them.
All sorts of new features have been added too. You can now garisson your units inside of buildings, something I can't believe I lived without before. Archers and townspeople will fire out at attackers if they come near. Units are more plentiful and balanced, and they look cooler too. Researches no longer occur in weird places (whoever heard of researching Watch Towers at a grainery? Well, no more!).
Some people dislike the game because of its scope. It has more resources, units, tactics, and ways to utterly destroy your enemy than any other RTS out there. It takes almost forever to master this game, and then you'll find that it's a whole new challange to play a different civilization with a different special unit.
There are all sorts of game types, the random map generater is better, maps are bigger (up to four times), and enemies are a hell of a lot smarter. If you've been playing for years, like I have, you'll still get to know all their possible tactics fairly well, but to be honest with you I still can't beat the game on the hardest difficulty level. The unit max has been moved up to 200-- wooohoo!
I really should put loads more here, but I couldn't possibly cover all of the improvments. Suffice to say that just about everything that could have been fixed and/or enhanced from AoE was.
The Bad
...just about everything. The diplomacy is still awful. Now, don't get me wrong; I almost feel like a traitor for not putting this in the Good section, because the guys at Ensemble clearly made it much better. But they just didn't get it right (again). As I said, it's better; you can actually tempt players to become your allies, trade with them well, etc. But there are HUGE holes in the AI code! For example, if you make someone your ally, you can switch your status with them to Enemy for a second and then go slaughter a hundred of their men, while they whine 'I'm your friend, be mine!' (I do this when they're hacking at MY lumber). Then when you're done, switch your status back to Ally again, and bam-- you're bestest friends again! They don't have a single memory of the terrors you unleashed unto their civilization. Huh.
I also miss the animated cutscenes from AoE. I know they had reasons to keep them out of this one, but I still really miss them.
I also felt that the map system could have used some tweaking, to handle their Campaigns (that attempted to put some RPG into the game, like W3: RoC did later). The Campaigns were not the best I've played in a game. But hey... who plays them anyways?!
The Bottom Line
Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings remains, in my opinion, the undisputed master of the real-time strategy scene. No other game-- yes, not even the overhypted Warcraft 3-- can defeat it. This isn't a game with hours of gameplay inside-- it's a game with years of it.
By ShadowShrike on November 10, 2005
Gothic II (Windows)
Challenging, beautiful, open-ended, smart, long; class gaming
The Good
The game begins where Gothic 2 ended, with a recap of events in the first game for beginners. The enigmatic Xardas the necromancer is the first character you meet, one of a plethora of colorful people who will play parts in the surprisingly long main quest.
The dialogue and interaction with NPCs really stand out immediately. All the dialogue is voice acted and there's loads of it, thousands of lines; in the first main game area, the city of Khorinis, you'll find dozens of characters with their own personalities and unique branching conversations, and every one of them is involved in at least one quest or job which you can take up or turn down. This isn't just for show, either; unlike linear 'RPG's like Neverwinter Nights, the things you say to people will really have a big effect on how the game plays.
The NPCs aren't just believable when you're interacting with them, though; they each have schedules which they will attend to, carrying out conversations with one another, sleeping, eating, working, et cetera. They react realistically when they encounter hostile NPCs or wild animals, sound the alarm if they see you committing a crime, and refuse to talk to you if they don't like you. The priest in Khorinis preaches to a crowd of citizens that gathers, and if you want you can stick around and listen to his lengthy prose as well. It's overall among the most lifelike, immersive game worlds yet brought to a computer screen.
The main quest is pretty slow to pick up; you have to gain several levels and complete a load of odd jobs before you'll be powerful enough to start on the road to the second chapter. This is a blessing and a curse, because while it introduces the open-endedness of the game world well, it's also pretty slow-paced.
The graphics are beautiful. Textures are of low detail in some areas, but this is more than made up for by the excellent character animation, lifelike creatures which inhabit the world, and most of all the verdant world itself in which you can see for miles around if you turn the view distance up high enough. Other fancy effects such as particles blowing in the wind, leaves falling off of trees and (semi-) reflective water are thrown in for good measure, but it's the artwork and level design that really stands out.
Sound is excellent, the best in any RPG I have played. Hitting a creature makes a meaty thunk or a bony crack, feet crunch on pine needles, swords clash off of each other with sharp retorts, and trolls let out fearful battle cries with vivid clarity. The voice acting also stands out; it is flawed because the foreign actors don't always get English inflection right, but all of the actors have character and most are skilled, which really brings the characters to life.
Gothic 2's nonlinearity really stands out. It manages to have a complex main plot and lifelike characters while still allowing you to do pretty much anything you want in the game world. There's a vast world to explore, over a hundred side quests to take care of, creatures to kill (and skin), plants to collect (and turn into potions), swords to forge, dungeons to loot, books to read, et cetera.
The Bad
Gothic 2's difficulty level is very steep for beginners. It actually gets easier in the last third of the game, as some of the creatures are pushovers and a wise player will have saved up enough gold to buy anything by then, but before then, novices will have a hard time getting by.
As mentioned, the voice acting's inflection is off at points. This is rarely a problem, but when it is it damages the immersion.
There are also a handful of glitches in the scripting, messing some quests up if you approach them the wrong way. This is an unfortunate issue, although it never, to my knowledge, gets in the way of the crucial quest.
It also bears noting that Gothic 2 does not manage to evoke the spooky, mysterious atmosphere of Gothic. Since you're playing in a more civilized area, the game just doesn't have that same dark, creepy mood to it. It's a small step down from the first game, but still superior to most others.
The Bottom Line
While Gothic 2 certainly isn't a game for everyone, it is one hell of an RPG. It's slow to pick up, very difficult at the beginning, and marred a little bit by glitches, but is otherwise a largely flawless gaming experience.
By ShadowShrike on October 20, 2005
Enclave (Windows)
Dull... very... dull
The Good
Enclave's high points are its stellar graphics and sound effects. The game is intricately detailed and special effects such as bump mapping help make it all the more pretty; the player character and enemies are smoothly animated and cast pristine, smooth shadows.
Sound is crisp, visceral, atmospheric; everything it should be in a game. It carries the dark gothic fantasy atmosphere effectively.
The Bad
Everything about the gameplay in Enclave is awful. It seems as if the team that made it is comprised of good programmers and artists, and nobody on the team has a clue how to actually design a fun game. There is nothing to it but hacking at enemies.
Similar action games have suffered because their combat wasn't detailed enough, but Enclave makes them look like masterpieces: There is no system of timing, combination attacks, dodging, etc; it's just a matter of hitting the attack key as much as you can.
AI is similarly awful. Enemies can't even get the whole run-and-gun thing straight, as they'll often freeze or backtrack for no particular reason. If this was supposed to simulate more advanced behavior such as retreating or finding cover, it fails miserably.
The Bottom Line
There is really no depth at all to Enclave. It gets no better as it goes along. I found it to be completely unbearable; perhaps those who enjoy the fancy graphics more or prefer very simple games will be able to play it through, but for anyone looking for a game with substance to it, Enclave will be a disappointment.
By ShadowShrike on September 11, 2005
Rune (Windows)
Somewhat enjoyable, linear 3rd person actionfest
The Good
Rune is a third-person action game, predictable and linear but quite enjoyable. As with most games of its ilk you progress through various maps with different environments such as villages, caves, underground rivers, mountains, etc collecting better weapons, and, in this case, shields, along the way, and fighting stronger enemies.
The plot is thin and not as impressive as the game's environment, which evokes the atmosphere of the Nordic world very well. The game uses a version of the Unreal engine circa Unreal Tournament; cutting edge at the time, it still looks fresh now, especially with advanced graphical options turned up high. The levels vary a good deal and are richly textured, but the characters really shine, animating smoothly and casting shadows on the level around them.
Rune's sound is high quality. Footsteps, weapon effects, enemy's voices are splattering blood are all as detailed as one could hope for. That's good, because you'll be hearing a whole lot of the above.
The level design is mediocre, but I think it leans toward the good side. While the levels are painfully linear at times, lacking any kind of advanced puzzle solving, they are fully in keeping with the game's strong atmosphere.
The atmospheric music is enjoyable, but not remarkable.
The Bad
Rune's combat is very simplistic. There are no ranged weapons so virtually all the action in the game is melee. Pick a weapon and hack away, trying to time your strikes and blocks right; that's pretty much all there is to it. Similarly there is not enough depth to the levels, the plot or even the various weapons you'll find to make the game a unique or compelling experience.
AI is another major failing. Rune lacks any kind of detailed enemy behavior. Enemies will run at you and hack away, and while they fight well, there's no strategy, teamwork or even real variation.
The Bottom Line
Rune fails to be a great game much in the same way Blade of Darkness, another third person fantasy action game released around the same time, does: Its central element, the combat, isn't interesting enough to propel the game, and it has just barely enough window dressings to make it worth the ride. Nothing too special here.
By ShadowShrike on September 11, 2005
Arx Fatalis (Windows)
Was it good for you too?
The Good
Arx Fatalis is an obvious homage to the Ultima Underworld series, with a similar core concept and gameplay lifted right from the pages of the Underworld manuals.
The core idea of the game it that it's an RPG with freeform character dynamics but a linear plot. It succeeds in as far as making building your character an entertaining process and simulating freedom of gameplay.
What keeps the game so fresh is that despite being locked to the game's straightforward plot at all times, there are plenty of unique things to do along the way. All sorts of items can be combined to make more useful ones, and the world can be interacted with in unique ways. For example, fish can be cooked over a fire, bread can be baked and potions can be distilled.
Arx has an innovative magic system in which you collect runes and draw their shapes in the air to form combinations which cast spells. It's clumsy on a technical level, but there's an inherent coolness in drawing runes in the air that makes up for that.
Apart from these innovations, the game is pretty standard RPG fare: Talk to someone, get a quest, kill a creature, get better items, level up, increase your statistics, rinse & repeat. There's nothing to complain about as Arx succeeds in keeping this formula quite entertaining for the duration of its game.
Also of note are the game's sound, which is above average, and its visuals, which, while not particularly striking in terms of special effects, evoke the atmosphere of dank, oppressive underground catacombs quite well. (Whether this is a good thing or not is clearly a matter of opinion.)
The Bad
Unfortunately, Arx trips over its own feet on the way to RPG greatness. It's horrifically unbalanced. Any poor sod trying to play as an archer will soon find that all their points spent in ranged weapon skill are completely useless, as ranged weapons are barely useful against the very weakest of the game's sorted enemies. Similarly, some spells are useless while others are the miracle cure as soon as they're acquired.
Another major failing is the plot. For an entirely plot-driven game, Arx really doesn't have a lot of it. It clearly attempts to be a fantasy epic, but there's nothing here that one wouldn't expect to find in a paperback Forgotten Realms 'novel': Strange prophecy, ancient evil, foretold savior, Ring/Sword/Teddy Bear of World-Saving, et cetera.
Arx's voice acting is subpar, but since it's a translated game that is to be expected.
Finally, one of the biggest problems with Arx is that it's incredibly short. A veteran RPG player will probably be able to churn through it in under fifteen hours, possibly less. The only RPG I've ever played shorter than Arx is Fable.
The Bottom Line
I've learned to judge game's plots by much lower standards than books or movies, so I was able to forgive Arx's lack of originality and enjoy the unique, innovative RPG game dynamics and the rich environment. For RPG players who can forgive a terribly unbalanced game, I recommend Arx; it really is quite fun... for the short time it lasts.
By ShadowShrike on August 31, 2005
Blade of Darkness (Windows)
Entertaining, but a bit stale
The Good
The first and most striking thing about Blade is that its light and shadow effects are way ahead of its time; in fact, they evoke games such as Doom 3 released four years later, an eternity in gaming. Not only do the player character and his enemies cast realistic, detailed shadows that spread across every surface, but objects as small as fragments of wood and hunks of meat also do. This real-time shadowing is merged almost seamlessly with the lightmaps (pre-determined light and shadow), and at times the game looks almost as fancy as Doom 3 or Thief: Deadly Shadows.
Of course, 80% of the game is combat, and Blade could have visual effects decades ahead of its time but still fail if the combat wasn't entertaining. Luckily, it is; not so much because it's fluid or intuitive, but because it's so visceral. Blood sprays over surfaces when you strike an enemy in close combat or throw a weapon at them, splattering over walls and dripping on the floor, and whole limbs will fly off, spraying blood around them; if you strike right an enemy's head will topple from his body as he dies. Gratuitous? definitely. Entertaining? Hell yes. There are plenty of weapons to perform these attacks with, which can be used in conjunction with an assortment of shields. Also sprucing up the game's combat is a wide variety of combo moves and special attacks, although they don't play as large a role in the game as it seems the developers aimed at.
Another thing the game had ahead of its time was physics effects. In most games when you break a barrel apart it will splinter into little shards that will explode into the air, fall to the ground while clipping into each other, and slowly fade into nothing; in Blade, a barrel breaks into properly sized pieces which fall naturally to the ground, rolling and knocking into one another realistically. Modern games have far better physics, but Blade was definitely ahead of its time. This comes into play in combat when throwing weapons, where it's actually possible to bank shots and do other fun tricks once you're skilled enough.
Some other high points include a few rare colorful game environments, and some of the game's generally bland sound.
The Bad
Ironically Blade's two strongest points are also its two greatest failings. While it has great visual effects, it lacks great art to showcase it. The four player characters and the enemies you will face are mediocre, lacking in detail; and while the game world is filled with fairly detailed textures, the level designers failed to really show this off, keeping ninety percent of the game confined to close spaces and chains of identical rooms. The character animation was supposedly motion captured, and at times it seems to work, but generally character movement is jerky and uneven. Worst of all, the mediocre animations often impose upon the gameplay, as the sluggish movement of the player puts him at unnecessary vulnerability during a fight.
Which leads us to the game's second great failing, its combat. While it is extremely fun at times, it's ridiculously frustrating at others - do to the aforementioned slow and stuttering animations, simply stepping forward at the wrong time can cost you your life in a fight. A third-person action game's combat should be smooth and focused on timing and combinations, but in Blade you end up thinking about your footwork and dumb luck more.
Finally, the game is just quite repetitive. Its major innovations, in the fields of lighting and physics, don't really affect the game at all. While the copious quantities of blood and guts keep the combat interesting enough for third-person combat fans, anyone looking for a complex or even fair gameplay experience will be disappointed.
The Bottom Line
Blade is worth playing for action-RPG and combat fans, especially those who like games in a fantasy environment. It's not really worth picking up for anyone else, despite its high points; the clunky combat and dull gameplay hold it back from being anything great.
By ShadowShrike on August 31, 2005
Diablo (Windows)
A decent hack'n'slash that stole every bit of gameplay idea from roguelikes.
The Good
Diablo is, in and of itself, an okay game.
The graphics are pretty nice. The town feels morbid and hopeless, which annoys me, but then again, so does the rest of the game; still, the town graphics work well, for what they are. The dungeon graphics are very nice and the random dungeons fit together well.
Enemies come in many different varieties, but you really won't notice until half way through; until then, the whole game is a cakewalk. Go down to a level, smash monsters to bits, sell loot. Perhaps it's just because I've played games like this for a long time, but I didn't even drink a health potion until halfway through. As I was saying, enemies, once you need to notice, have different resistances as you get lower. Fire for cold bad guys, cold for burning bad guys.
Items have very nice graphics and the inventory system is excellent. I think the whole item system is just about the highest point in the game. There are item 'prefixes' and 'suffixes'; imagine getting a "Burning Plate Mail of Fire Resistance." The possibilities are many. This might not seem too neat, but Diablo was the first commercial game to use the prefix/suffix system.
That's basically it. You can waste days of your life on this game (playing games is a waste of time in general, albiet a fun one, I know; my point is, looking back, you won't understand why you wasted this time). Once you're done, you can play as a different class, or online.
The Bad
Okay, minor gripes first.
For one thing, the whole game atmosphere is dark, oppresive, and hopeless. This annoys the hellfire out of me. Not only that, but in the sequel you find out that all you did by winning the game was doom the world even more. Just great-- I really want to finish now.
The game is also pretty unbalanced. Sorcerers can happily blast away with spells and Fighters can use all sorts of weapons and armor, but poor, hapless Rogues are stuck halfway inbetween, wondering what in the world they shoul do. The only good reason to play them is because they are the only class that looks good no matter what they're wearing...
Now the major problem.
Diablo stole all these ideas from roguelikes. The idea of a town above a big dungeon filled with monsters. The idea of random dungeon generation. Even the word of recall scrolls and the prefix/suffix system was grabbed! Nothing in this game is original, and yet absolutely no credit whatsoever is given to the brilliant masterminds who developed the roguelikes. I'm saying 'roguelikes' here, but it's mainly Angband that these ideas are taken from. Go ahead and play the game. It's the exact same darn thing.
Another major gripe is that the game is really darn short. You can finish it in a day of full playing if you don't spend time clearing everything out of levels anyways. Playing online ads to the fun, but not much-- teamplay just dosen't work in Diablo, because there is no teamplay element. Get some heroes, get some evil corrupting malicious essenses of utter destruction and primal gore, and toss them in a big, dark dungeon. That's it.
The Bottom Line
You may have noticed that this review is very down on the game, although I said it was an okay game in itself. That's because it is an okay game, but only because it stole ideas. It's a 2.5/5.
I actually do recommend buying the game at the price it is at right now. If you add on the Hellfire expansion, you've got 3 new classes and about a day more of play time. The game does have its high points. But all the acclaim it got for being a breakthrough, brilliant game should have gone to Angband-- a free game that started decades ago, and hardly anyone knows about it.
By ShadowShrike on September 29, 2004
Magic & Mayhem: The Art of Magic (Windows)
Rather like a charismatic but abusive spouse
The Good
The Basics: Sequel to Magic & Mayhem, The Art of Magic attempts to recreate the same basic game system in 3 dimensions with some new spells and creatures. Story-wise, it is a prequel to the first game.
Graphics
Initially, The Art of Magic is unappealing. After a long introduction video that was nothing but a camera panning over a (admittedly good) painting with a cheesy-voice over that left me thinking more about how many megabytes of space this wasted and less about the plot, you’re thrown into the game world.
It’s fully 3d accelerated, which is a good thing. The bad thing is that the game graphics you’re presented with at first are simply not good. Character models are the best part; they’re fairly well texture mapped and well designed, but unfortunately a very strict and unchangeable level of detail system makes them look far worse unless you zoom full in. The game world is mediocre in design and really poorly textured. The UV mapping is such that textures warp, stretch, and never seem to tile properly.
Spell effects are a mixed bag. The initial ones are pretty poor; a fireball is a transparent red sphere, which is pretty pathetic. Later on you find some that have great effects, such as the Dragon Breath spell which is prettier than most effects you’ll find even today.
As far as technical details go, the game runs in up to 1024x768 screen resolution; with all the graphical quality sliders maxed, and the game zoomed out, the poor graphical design can be forgiven in the face of the artistic merit, which is defiantly there. There’s a strong Celtic theme to most of the maps that makes them quite appealing.
Score: 3.5/5
Audio
Voice acting is the first impression of the game’s audio you’ll get. My very first thought was that it bit. Cheesy, melodramatic; everyone has a Scottish accent which is in most cases probably real, and also in most cases probably exaggerated. Over time, it’ll grow on you a bit; I’m giving the game the benefit of the doubt and assuming the corniness was intentional.
Technically the voice acting doesn’t work very well. Alerts from allies letting you know they’re low on health that should take two to four seconds take ten to fifteen, with drawn out gasps and groans. I also had problems with long speeches being clipped as another actor started talking, which was rather amusing.
The sound effects are decent and unremarkable. There’s nothing particularly special about them and over time they’ll grow to be annoying.
The music is quite good and follows with the Celtic theme well. It’s almost ‘epic’, but doesn’t quite get there. There isn’t really enough of it, either.
Score: 3/5
Multiplayer Gameplay/Balance
The game’s multiplayer is probably its most enjoyable aspect. You can play against seven AI or human enemies on a wide variety of maps which you can customize with sliders affecting the amount of magic items, places of power, etc. The enemy bot AI is the same as it is in single-player, and it works well enough until you learn its weaknesses—from there, it’s simply not a challenge unless you greatly outnumber yourself intentionally. Playing against humans, however, is extremely enjoyable. There are many layers of tactics in managing your spells and units, creating totems, finding items and food and hunting down enemy wizards.
It is not without major flaws. Apart from the weak AI, there are pathfinding difficulties and issues with lag. Online matches are also usually quite slow. Some spells are virtually useless, but the balance is generally sound.
Score: 3/5
The Bad
Interface/Technology
The game interface is abysmal from the get-go. The installer gave me a handful of weird errors before it started to install, and it took twenty minutes to do so. This is not my hardware; I use this CD-ROM drive all the time. There’s something very wrong with the installer that limits its speed. Once the game’s set up, you launch it to be faced with a loading screen that takes too… damn… long. My processor is almost two times as powerful as anything that existed when the game was released, and it takes over three solid minutes just to get to the main menu. The only possible reason I can see for this is that it’s loading every single game object before you even start a scenario; the fact that you have to restart the game to change graphics detail also suggests this.
It goes downhill from there. Once you choose a mission to play it takes about a minute to set everything up, and then you’re dropped in the game. The interface is poorly made. The basics are in, such as context-sensitive cursors and group selection. But you can’t assign groups of units and the poorly implemented pathfinding makes basic features such as ‘follow’ almost useless. The camera rotates as it zooms, so when you zoom out you get a direct overhead view and when you zoom in it’s almost directly from the side. Anyone who’s used a system like this knows how frustrating it is. It’s counter-intuitive and damages strategic play.
As for technology, the frame rates are absolutely horrid for the amount of polygons and textures there are on the screen. I can only attribute this to previously mentioned precaching of way, way too many objects; that or just a really awful game engine. When you zoom in, textures often ‘swim’ and occasionally warp totally.
I experienced a few crashes to desktop and the occasional mission-ruining glitch, though whether this was poor scripting or a broken engine I don’t know.
Score: 1.5/5
Single Player Gameplay/Balance
The basic idea of gameplay is that your wizard finds and controls places of power through putting a unit on them; power is constantly relayed to him through them, which allows your wizard to make more units and cast more spells before running out. Before each scenario you pick your spells by dropping an ingredient into a law, neutral or chaos token, each combination creating a different spell. There are touches of RPG in that you can tweak your character’s attributes as he progresses through the missions, giving him more hit points, mana, or creature control limit.
The basic mechanics are good, and they’re all ported from the first game. With that established, the campaign in this game is incredibly frustrating. It attempts to make the game more of an RPG than a strategy game, and the pacing and design go directly against that. I got stuck on missions three times and once a walkthrough didn’t even help; often you are not given any clues towards what you’re supposed to do.
Controlling a lot of creatures is fun, but also annoying, because the pathfinding system is bugged quite badly and occasionally units will just decide to ignore your orders.
The plot is pure tripe and I’m not even going to bother repeating it here. If you’ve ever played dungeons and dragons, read a fantasy novel or watched a fantasy movie, you’ve been here before. I dearly hope it was intended to be as corny as the voice acting. It grows on you a bit, and I did want to finish it, but the game designers apparently didn’t; the maps that could have been more interesting to play through generally feature the worst implementation.
Frustration abounds.
Score: 2/5
The Bottom Line
Though I managed to enjoy this game somewhat, I cannot recommend it to anyone. Strategy gamers will be appalled by the lack of essential strategic options and the miserable interface. RPG gamers will be turned off by the poorly implemented RPG elements in the missions that try to use them. Casual gamers will probably be annoyed by both these things. I loved the Celtic theme and the cheesy B-grade fantasy plot and voice acting grew on me, but every time I tried to see the good side of it, it turned around and did something else wrong to make me dislike it more. Some of these flaws are apparent from the beginning, but most of them crop up over extended play. Though the developers have put in a good effort in some aspects of the game, once you’ve come to know it, it’s all too easy to love to hate.
Final Value: 2.5/5
By ShadowShrike on September 26, 2004
Star Wars: Rebellion (Windows)
Lacking in too many ways (Revised)
The Good
The Basics: Star Wars: Rebellion is basically a resource-managing strategy game, with real-time 3d combat when the inevitable conflict occurs. You attempt to win through sending characters from the books and movies on missions such as diplomacy, sabotage and abduction, managing resource gathering on a lot of planets, organizing your fleets well and winning the battles.
Interface/Technology
Rebellion uses a Windows-like control system for managing planets. Once you get the hang of it, this works pretty well. There are a few convenience features for when, later on in the game, you'll have a lot of planets to manage, which makes using them easier. A sidebar shows your reports and the bar at the bottom allows you to access things such as the encyclopedia and find specific characters and fleets. It doesn’t take up too much screen space, and I like that.
Things go downhill in the real-time combat. The designers obviously had very little experience with this kind of game device because the mechanics here are poorly done. Moving the camera around is a royal pain and it's far too difficult to issue basic commands to your fleets.
Score: 3/5
The Bad
Graphics
The graphics in the tactical game section are generally decent. Every character has a mug shot which, in reports, is pasted over a different background depending on the mission they're on; there are special pictures for informing you of sabotage, fleet arrival, etc. This is all okay, but the color scheme is far too drab and the images often feel very unprofessional, as if they were slapped together in a very cheap paint program. As far as artistic merit goes, it's all right, but there wasn’t a single image in the whole game that really wowed me.
The handful of cut scenes are fairly high quality and don't suffer from the drab colors the rest of the game does. They're quite good actually.
And like all the rest of the mechanics, it goes sharply downhill in real-time combat. Ship meshes are so low detail that they look blocky at the minimum zoom level, and snubfighters are something like 32x32 bitmap sprites. It's really, really low quality, and not even two huge fleets with full bays of snubfighters colliding manages to look impressive unless you squint (sniffing glue might help, but should not be required to make a game look nice).
Score: 2.5/5
Audio
Sound effects are rare and when you do hear them, only mediocre quality. In real-time combat they're as drab as the colors; I'm not sure if it's low sound quality or just poorly designed effects. Possibly both. Altogether it's quite unremarkable.
The musical score is, surprise, from the movies. It's not context-sensitive or anything as far as I can tell, so basically it's just a few tracks looping in the background. I eventually turned it off. We all love it, sure, but it's overused and there is far too little of it here.
Score: 2.5/5
Single Player Gameplay/Balance
I really like the concept here. You manage fleets and ground troops, handle research of new technology to help the war, control your commandos and use the rare ones with the Recruit ability to find more. There are some neat gimmicks thrown in like finding and training Jedi and assassination missions that only the Empire can perform. The mission system is well done and the most enjoyable part of the whole game.
Resource management is strictly mediocre. You mine ore that refineries transform into resources which are used to make things. It's not supposed to be in-depth and I never found it hard to deal with, but it’s not notable either.
The ships were disappointing; basically, there's an Empire and Rebel version of each one, with slightly tweaked statistics and a different graphic. There is no very unique unit on either side. This is especially annoying because with all the ships they put in, you'd think there'd be some more originality.
Battles ultimately boil down to who can shoot the capital ships up the fastest. There are some advanced tactics options for various styles of attack that, I know from extensive play, are absolutely pointless and only exist to make it look more complicated than it is. Hit points and firepower are really all that matters. There's no navigation, no organization, and no tactics.
Score: 2.5/5
Multiplayer Gameplay/Balance
I never played this game on multiplayer because I never found anyone to play with. I'm not rating this category, but I'm putting it here to let readers know it exists.
The Bottom Line
LucasArts has been going steadily downhill since the great game that was X-Wing. There is no innovation here and it doesn’t even get the tried and true concepts right. This title has little to offer to turn-based strategy games and Star Wars fans and absolutely nothing to anyone else. If you fall into both the previous categories, like me, it might be worth picking up and playing once as both the Empire and the Rebellion. Otherwise, don't waste your time.
Total Value: 2/5
By ShadowShrike on September 26, 2004