Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
50 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent RPG/RTS experience, May 16, 2006
Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars
Continuing the path set by its predecessor, Spellforce 2: Shadow Wars continues along the RTS/RPG hybrid path. You create an avatar; equip them with weapons, armor, and other items, and increase their levels by gaining experience, just like in a traditional RPG. Your avatar is joined on his/her quest by several heroes whom you can also equip with the items you will acquire on your journeys. Your avatar and these heroes form the traditional RPG party that travels through the game advancing the story, slaying monsters, and completing numerous side quests. Your avatar, as well as one of the companion heroes, is completely under your control: you can distribute his/her skills just as you like, making them into the RPG archetype you want, be it fighter, mage, archer, healer or a combination of the others. The other heroes have pre-set "classes" that limit how much you can customize them; one becomes as fighter, another a healer, etc. A total of five heroes will eventually join your avatar. The way the characters level up is perhaps the game's biggest departure from its predecessor. You no longer have to manage attributes such as strength and intelligence, and the number of available skills is greatly reduced. Spellcasters no longer gain spells by finding spell scrolls, but rather by adding skills. Adding points into skills such as Black magic or Nature Magic gives mages the chance of gaining new and more powerful spells. The heroes gain levels less quickly that the avatar; the maximum level for the avatar is 30, while it is 24 for heroes. However, unlike Spellforce, your heroes are always with the avatar; no need to find rune monuments to summon them, and since they gain levels as the avatar does, there is no need to find new runes to gain more powerful heroes. This also works the heroes into the story, making it more involving. Since your characters no longer gain stats, their growth in power is tied much more to the equipment they find, making the completing of side quests much more imperative.
During their journeys, your avatar and his hero companions will often find it necessary to call upon the services of armies to accomplish their objectives. This is where the game's RTS elements emerge. You gain workers who gather resources and build the structures necessary to summon the military units for your army. You can also build defensive structures such as archer towers to keep foes at bay. The RTS element of the game is far less altered from Spellforce. The first games had six races from which you could summon armies: Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Trolls, and Dark Elves. Spellforce 2 adds the Barbarians, Gargoyles, and Shadows. However, the nine races are divided into the three factions: The Realm (Humans, Elves, Dwarves), The Clans (Orcs, Trolls, Barbarians), and The Pact (Dark Elves, Gargoyles, and Shadows). Unlike Spellforce, where you had to find runes and plans to summon armies from rune monuments, in Spellforce 2 you are given a headquarters as a base of operations. You gain access to new races, and more advanced buildings by completing quests. Instead of simply finding runes, there are representatives from each faction who will "join" you to grant you the ability to build armies of their faction. Instead of their levels being fixed at the level of the worker rune you used, as in Spellforce, your units also level along with the avatar, albeit much more slowly; their maximum level is 18. Of course, you can still zoom in and out from an overhead view to a ground level "chase cam", showing your avatar and units up-close. This is a great perspective to appreciate the impressive architecture of some of the game's structures.
The game is surprisingly non-linear. You can revisit previously conquered lands to complete side quests or even scour the map for a previously missed treasure. There is even one map that is your own personal kingdom, and you can return there time and again to complete a number of side quests. The main single-player campaign story is surprisingly engaging, and the side quests have enough variety to avoid monotony; one particular quest involves playing a game known as Drakkar with a city's best players to earn a prize. In addition to the main campaign, further playtime can be spent in Skirmish, Free Game, and multiplayer modes. There is a lot of game to go around here.
The two factors that kept me from rating this game 5 stars were the leveling system, and the erratic difficulty. Experience is usually gained only by defeating difficult foes or by completing quests, so I often found my character waiting on the cusp of the next level for quite a while, waiting to reach the level requirement for that sweet sword or suit of armor that I found a while ago. The simplification of the RPG system was a bit bothersome, but it's a calculated risk, since the elimination of excessive micro-management should help less hard-core RPGers get into the game, even though the uber-RPG players might be turned off at the prospect of not being able to fully customize their character. The skill system also prevents you from piling a ton of skill points into one area; you must distribute skill points in other areas at some point before advancing the skills with the most points invested in them. Luckily, this doesn't force you to waste skill points on magic when you want to make a shredding swordfighter. The difficulty of the game can also rise and fall in roller coaster fashion; I found some maps to be frustratingly difficult while others were quite easy.
Overall, my gripes are minor, and this game is a very worthy successor to Spellforce: The Order of Dawn. I'm already excited about this game having two excellent expansions, just as its predecessor did. Spellforce 2: Shadow Wars is a fun and satisfying experience. Highly recommended.
|
|
|
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good, not great, June 25, 2006
Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars
Spellforce 2 is very unique, and is an effective mix of both RTS and RPG, however, it does neither genre particularly well. My biggest complaint is that all online screenshots look amazing, but even a good computer will have trouble running this game with the graphics settings remotely high....and in this game, there is a big drop off between High and Medium graphics settings. If you have a great cpu setup, you will probably have a good game experience.
|
|
|
22 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
SpellForce 2 - the next gen RTS game, May 4, 2006
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
Yes, its true - I regard not games like Age of Empires 3 or Battle for Middleearth II as next gen RTS game. Its SpellForce 2.
At first you must consider the main features. SF2 is a combination of two genres - RTS & RPG. This means that you can switch to a 3rd person view, collect items, solve quests and get skills for your avatar & hero party through a skill tree.
Then there is the phantastic graphic. Its really amazing. The shader effects make it look very realistic. Sound are also just great.
Fascinating is especially the mission design & the story concept. I really enjoyed it and its really a way different from other RTS games. On the whole the single player campaign has a playtime of more than 40 hours. But then there is also a free game mode campaign which has nearly the same playtime and can be played as well with friends over the internet.
I can recommend it to any fan of RTS & RPG games. Its just the perfect blend between Dungeon Siege & Age of Empires.
Get it!
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
