Written by Brian Beck, 7/7/2006
Played on:
Windows
1GB RAM
Radeon 9800XT
I remember a day when a game’s genre was its genre. Things didn’t mix – an action game was just an action game, for example. You didn’t have one of the many half-assed attempts at putting together two genres that shouldn’t ever mix. Sure, some were successful, particularly the whole action-adventure deal. Generally, though, the mixes didn’t work well.
But, in a day and age where everything is mixed (even your food from KFC – though the mashed potato bowls are actually pretty good), games will continue to try and fail at successfully blending two or more genres. The original Spellforce was an attempt to blend an RPG with an RTS and it, surprisingly, worked pretty well. Sure, there were some issues with the game, but it was actually fun to play.
With little hype, though, Spellforce 2 has recently been released. In much the same vein as the original game, Spellforce 2 blends the RPG and RTS genres. While the overall formula for the combination is the same with only a few small changes made, the game still manages to be as fun as the original.
The story starts off in what could be considered massive foreshadowing – it has definitely been used before. To prove a point, we’ll play a game of mad libs. You are an all-powerful being descended from (noun, powerful being or race) just going about your day. The evil (noun, evil race or being) are slowly invading under everyone’s nose. As you (verb) around the (noun, type of environment) a bit, you realize that your (noun, type of town) is being attacked! Now you have to (verb) to make sure your city isn’t overrun by the evil (second noun)! Really, we’ve seen this type of story over and over again – thankfully, it doesn’t really get in the way here in Spellforce 2.
In Spellforce 2, each map starts off with you in charge of your created character. At first, the screen looks like a traditional RTS – an isometric default view with a controllable camera lets you command things like you’re used to. Selecting your hero (or, if you have another, heroes) is just the same as other RTSes – a box selection or just clicking on the unit. If you click the middle mouse button, though, you can instead go to a behind-the-character view and control yourself with the WASD keys.
In RPG mode, you’ll play the game just like you would most Action-RPGs. Target your enemy, either right click them or click the sword under their portrait, and boom, you’ll attack. You have some special abilities that you can use, too – melee attacks, spells and such are RPG staples and make their appearance here. You can set them to one of many hotkey buttons and hit a number key to activate them. There’ll even be a skill tree you can move through as you gain experience from completing side quests and beating up monsters. Spellforce 2 will be very familiar to most anyone that has played a recent RPG.
The RTS side of things is very easy to pick up on, too. If you have played any sort of strategy game in recent memory, particularly Warcraft III (which the RTS portion feels similar to), you’ll have no issues with playing the strategy portion of each mission. You have your hero units (which were the same heroes you controlled in the RPG portion of the mission), your builders and then military units of varying power. The options in this mode, though, also do leave something to be desired. Unit AI doesn’t seem to be too great here, for example. Also, the lack of any ability to put my units in formations can hurt.
One difference in the RTS portion of the game that I haven’t really seen used often is how each unit’s group has an icon to denote the type of unit in the group. If, for example, you assign a mass of warriors to Ctrl-1, you’ll see a little picture of the prominent unit in the top right of the screen with the number on it. You can then click that to select the unit along with clicking the sword under them to tell them to fight. The game refers to clicking the sword icon under the unit picture (be it hero or regular troops) as the ‘click-to-fight’ system. While it isn’t always the easiest way to handle fighting, it is a nice option when you already have the enemy selected – instead of de-selecting your group, you just click the sword to attack your target. Sometimes, selecting a certain enemy in the heat of combat can be very difficult and this keeps you from having to do that.
The two genres are blended pretty well, though. You don’t just randomly end up tossed into a RTS-style mission with no real reason. For example, the first mission has you traveling the countryside and finding out your city is under attack. You’ll press on and talk to a member of another faction and be tasked with building up an army. The transition between the types of games is pretty smooth.
The races are pretty traditional, too – one is good with magic, another is good at beating your face in and the last is good at being stealthy. Each plays differently enough to give you a different feeling when using them, though, so it isn’t all bad.
Graphics are, well, a mixed bag. On my system, which is no real slouch, I had some issues playing at default settings – the game was incredibly choppy. After fiddling with the settings for 15 or 20 minutes, though, I was able to play. Even after lowering a lot of stuff to low levels, the game still looked pretty nice, although the world felt like the many worlds I’ve traveled through before.
Voices are surprisingly good, though the animation of the mouths doesn’t really match up at all. However, is a lot of quality voice acting here – something still not very common in games. The music and other sounds in the game are nothing extraordinary, but they do manage to get the job done.
Multiplayer is definitely an interesting affair, too. While there is the normal “beat the crap out of each other” set of missions, the fun really comes in with the second campaign. See, this campaign isn’t as story driven as the first…but you can play with up to two friends. The ability to play through a single player campaign with friends is something I’ve been waiting to see for a long time in RTSes – and it actually works well in this hybrid.
Overall, Spellforce 2 is slightly above average. It take two portions of a game that wouldn’t succeed on their own and combines them into a package that proves to be fun with a large amount of gameplay. If you’re looking for RPG or RTS innovation, check out another game on the market. However, if you want a new and unique experience, don’t be afraid to give Spellforce 2 a try – if anything, you’ll be playing it for awhile to come.
