RISE AND FALL: CIVILIZATIONS AT WAR(DVD)

I knew this one sported StarForce (thanks to Amazon Reviewers with brass ones - and not intimidated by the gaming industry hyenas); yet, I found it in a electronics megamarket bin for $3 and could not resist. (Goes to show what the value of ridiculously "protected" games becomes in less than a year).

StarForce aside (and after subtracting 2 stars for its intrusive risk to our systems), this RTS seems undecided as to what it aimed for.
Trying to combine strategy with action is not new, WARCRAFT 3 (for one) did it much better. You have your hero (Alexander or Cleopatra) and then you build up your army to complete the corresponding campaign.
You build your base and your workers gather wood and gold. When strong enough you go (or get thrown) into battle - to earn the third resource: glory. All three are needed to advance to the next eras.

The graphics can be adequately good if run on high settings; low settings are pretty disappointing. The units are well designed though, and their movements and spilled blood give a realistic taste.

The controls will take you some time to get used to as, not only do they take up quite a chunk of the screen, but are temperamental in responding as well. Selecting units, especially in the heat of the battle, can be tricky too, as more often than not, workers receive by mistake the order to run into the front line and fight hand-to-hand with the armed enemy: an expensive short-lived sight.

The only thing that keeps this game afloat is, well, its naval warfare. Most RTS avoid them as too messy and complicated (haven't seen a solid effort since C&C: RED ALERT 2), however R&F:CaW demonstrates well designed ships, historically (more or less) accurate naval warfare techniques and quite enjoyable animations.

All in all: not a bad game that, unfortunately, is hardly worth the StarForce trouble it brings to our systems.

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Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War has the look of a great game, but once you start getting into the mechanics of it, it's surprising how many fundamentals of RTS fall flat. I recently re-played StarCraft, and I can see how many things that were new then, have been much improved upon since. Oddly, Rise and Fall seems to have missed the boat on a lot of these basic important things that would make the gameplay good. For example, in the Tutorial mode it's not always clear what your exact objectives are--you might think you're accomplishing a goal and discover you forgot to follow a step or buy an upgrade. That's not good for what is supposed to be the easiest part of the game. Units can be produced for different purposes (e.g., skirmishers are not the same as archers, who are in turn not the same as cavalry), but none of them seems to have a different skillset. In other words, in a game like Age of Empires, archers need to stay behind cover or at a distance from cavalry, who will run them down. Foot soldiers have to charge quickly if they are going up against mounted enemies, preferably while archers are letting fly from a distance and your own mounted units are on the way to provide reinforcements. Games like Warhammer 30,000 reward you for digging into trenches for cover, or taking higher ground to rain damage down upon your enemy. In Rise and Fall, units just fling themselves at each other until it's over. Or at least, they would if they could follow simple instructions. I typically have to tell units more than once to go fight an enemy before they'll move. When they get there, they might just stop fighting and watch the enemy go hack down my walls. Or--worse--they can get stuck on the landscape and fumble against rocks while the bad guys crawl through dense trees and somehow breach my walls. All of this gets more difficult when you can't see your units--unlike any other RTS game I've played, units leave no silhouettes for you to find them when they step into the woods or go to the other side of a wall: I was often drawing lassos, grabbing everybody, and returning them to a clear area so I could sort them back out, sending stray peasants back to work and ordering individual units back to their own kind.
Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War also offers a new play mode, similar to Faces of War: "Hero Mode" lets you take control of your powerful hero and complete some quests in a first-person, WASD-mapped way. When I was up close and personal with Alexander, I was amazed at how beautiful the environment looked: deep water, green trees, and overall gorgeous landscape almost took my attention away from the goals. Almost. Unfortunately, I had to pay very close attention to Alex, as he seemed very clumsy and fumble-footed under my direction: sometimes he couldn't walk down a slope unless I gave him extra clearance to either side of him. Using the bow and arrow was rather nicely done, but swinging the sword was much like the old classic "Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown" - click the button like mad and watch the enemies throw themselves on your sword.
Overall, this could have been a great game. Unfortunately, the poor experience of trying to get anything done draws it down. Single-player action modes are boring, organizing your armies is pointless, and RTS-style clashes are frustrating adventures in cat-herding. Add long load times--even for the DVD-ROM version--and you have a game that's not really worth the current posted price, low as it is.

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This game, in my humble opinion, is much, MUCH better than your average review you'd read on GameSpot or IGN, etc. Hero mode is truly revolutionary. The campaigns are extremely fun to play and are useful as a learning tool and make up for the lack of insight imparted by the tutorials alone.

The only complaint I have is that it requires a very powerful computer to play it smoothly. I'll see how it runs on Vista.

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