This game was a big "whoa" from the start. If you look at the screenshots it looks like an outdated 90's game. The engine certainly feels so but once you start playing it you discover its genius. It's a classic RTS with RPG elements (you also have a hero on the battlefield) but with greatly improved gameplay. There are tons of races to choose from, a LOT of possible professions for your hero and hundreds of missions spread across a very big map. Lots of races means lots of units. The game has a huge variety of monsters and spells and the replay value of it is amazing. And speaking of gameplay the AI script was very advanced allowing many complex and different types of behavior. The campaign become repetitive and the heroes a bit overpowered at the end but other than that, I recommend this game to every RTS enthusiast.
Being used to more classic styles of strategy games, I was amazed at this product. For 2004, when it came out, it was jaw dropping on every level. The graphics were absolutely spectacular, the world was extremely well detailed (you could actually see, in detail, footprints of soldiers left in the snow as they marched across the battlefield), the lighting was incredible and the soundtrack amazing. I still listen to it on youtube 7 years later. And to top it all off, the best camera I've ever encountered in a strategy game. You had total freedom to zoom in and out and to rotate and tilt it however you liked. The gameplay was very neat (it follows RTT rules), vehicle armor was distributed differently on different sides of the vehicle, the infantry didn't become useless as higher tier units entered combat and it never got dull. Everything on the battlefield had a tactical role to play and the storyline was great, yet incredibly sad. You rarely see a more moving tale unfold in a game. The only complain I have is that artillery fired very weirdly (they fired almost vertically every time) and the units were very tough: it took a lot of firepower to kill even relatively fragile units. However, all in all, a breathtaking game I will never forget and one that makes me proud to be a gamer.
