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SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars (PC)
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5/5 |
The Perfect Blend
(February 15, 2008) |
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The unique selling point of the Spellforce series is the seamless blend of traditional isometric resource based real time strategy and squad based role playing. The first iteration of the idea was good, but this latest design further refines the mechanism.
There is a detailed and lengthy story, but don't ask me what it is about. There are dragons, shadow beings and magical entities of all kinds, but it blends into the kind of meaningless fantasy mush that seems to threaten to overwhelm any modern fantasy game. The story may be of enormous interest to some, but none of it made any sense to me.
Despite that the game has a strong narrative, formed not only from the story elements (who did what when and why) but from the graphical style and design. Levels are colourful and varied, with spell and weapon effects delivering satisfyingly robust bursts of light, dust and movement.
Character animations are fluid and interesting, and the landscapes form suitably organic and natural feeling battlefields. Tactics and strategy can be pretty fluid once you get the idea that you really have to use the hot keys, which allow you to select enemies and unit groups.
The Spellforce battle system is the best I've seen. Hit the Tab key to select the strongest enemy, and then click on the attack icon under the relevant unit. Units will attack as instructed, with ranged units and healers standing off, whilst close combat units get stuck in.
The intelligence and path finding of your troops is second to none, with everyone behaving in a logical and reasonable manner. Units don't get lost, they arrive where and when they should, and they do exactly what you tell them. If they don't have overriding orders they will carry out obvious functions themselves, such as attacking enemies who come in range, repairing buildings, healing themselves and others.
Much of your success will depend upon your hero units, and for large parts of the game you can rely upon them exclusively. They will be introduced via plot lines, joining your party for reasons that are not always logical. You will end up with five extra heroes, plus one additional character who travels with you, but whose destiny and stats you have little control of.
Heroes can be levelled up exactly the same way as your main character, and items in the group inventory can be equipped easily. The inventory is easily sorted and maintained, with one of the few bugbears in the game being the trading mechanism, which involves dragging each individual item from the character inventory to the shop inventory. After a long day slaying shadow beasts and giant spiders the last thing you want to be doing is generating cash like this.
In fact, the whole trading system is largely redundant, with many useful items just turning up in the landscape. I for one never actually had to buy anything from a trader. Simply cleaning out the inventory by selling everything that I wasn't using became a regular chore, and I ended up with thousands of gold coins I had no use for!
The game is huge, especially if the player follows every sub quest, with value for money being absolutely guaranteed. As well as the main campaign and the standard on line and skirmish modes, there is a free play option which bears more than a passing resemblance to the very first Spellforce. This mode is a lot tougher than the campaign, and will require all your skills to master.
I'm a huge fan of the Spellforce series, and whilst the game isn't without it's minor flaws, it has more than enough to ensure that anyone with even a passing interest in the RTS or RPG formats will find something of interest.
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1/5 |
No Go For Vista
(January 17, 2008) |
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If you run a Vista computer, forget it. The copy protection is not compatible (Asks you to run in administrator mode, even when your computer is in administrator mode!). Don't bother with the help forums unless you can understand German to technical proficiency.
And while we are about it, why would a game want you to run your computer in administrator mode anyway? AVOID. |
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5/5 |
Excellent stuff
(July 08, 2006) |
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I liked this thing a lot.
It has a delicate and fine gameplay for the ones, who are interested not only reading a fantasy book, but being in the middle of it.
Graphics is breathtaking, actually I've bought a better notebook also to enjoy the visuals of this game in a higher resolution... |
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3/5 |
So much potential, but fatally flawed
(June 05, 2006) |
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I have to agree with the previous review comments. Having admired the different twist on skills, and the generally good balance between solo RPG missions and grand RTS battles of SF1 and expansions, I was awaiting this with baited breath..
But.. I guess I'm one of those unlucky folks whose hardware just doesn't line up right.. I can't play the game for more than about 10 minutes at a time before a random access violation unceremoniously dumps me back to desktop.. There's a patch available from the game website that fixes most RAV's... just not mine.. I hope that a future patch will fix this, and I can then explore the game properly, but for now, it's going back in its box... |
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4/5 |
Still Addictive, Still Flawed
(May 17, 2006) |
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As others have noticed this is, to a large extent, more along the same lines as the original Spellforce. It's a combination of RPG and RTS set in a fairly stock fantasy world and built around a standard-issue "stop the invading hordes" plot.
Spellforce 2 is more polished than the original, and updated to take advantage of the latest advances in graphics and CPU power, but the gameplay remains similar. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing -- if you enjoyed Spellforce (and if you have a suitably capable PC) then you'll certainly enjoy Spellforce II. It's one of the handful of games I've played where I've been tempted to stop and admire the scenery (the chase-cam viewpoint is good for this).
The biggest niggle about the original version was the voice acting. I'd say this is improved in Spellforce 2, but it's still patchy. Some of the acting is as good as anything you'll hear in a game (I know they used an established US company for at least some of the voice work) but there still traces of Germanic accents and stilted delivery (though not all the German accents are stilted, and not all the stilted delivery is Germanic). The actual written script, while solid overall, shows some evidence of having been created by a non-native English speaker. Or maybe it was translated too hastily. Either way, Harrison Ford's line to George Lucas comes to mind: "George, you can type this ****, but you can't say it".
For all the quibbles, Spellforce 2 remains a slick, addictive, graphically gorgeous game. If I sound negative, it's because I can see how great this could have been, given better writing and acting. Here's hoping for an follow-up that uses the same engine to deliver a strong and engaging (and well-voiced!) *story* where the hero is a protagonist rather than a cipher, with a personal story, personal goals, and facing personal threats. Given better story fuel, this engine could power a piece of gaming history, worthy of standing up there with the likes of Baldur's Gate. |
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