Starting with a tiny band of neolithic primitives, you build your tribe thru a history of sorts on a randomly generated world map competing with other nations to the modern era and beyond. The history spanning game that conquered the known world! Familiar to all gamers, even non-TBS gamers, one of the most commercially successful game franchises of all time made some of its more merchant oriented perpetrators and pervayers obscenely rich. With these greedy pushers still spawning ever increasing variants to further exploit the addiction of gamers all around the world, as of the date of this review there are some 30+ versions of this product not including add-ons, mods and so on. So aside from miscellaneous changes in units, buildings, the tech tree etc, what makes this particular product different from the other variants of this narcotic ... erm ... I mean game? The interface is considerably different with the city screen less important. With a number of extra screens you may want to memorise the keyboard shortcuts otherwise you'll find yourself clicking endlessy back and forth between screens quite a bit - especially since many of the results from changes you make only show up after you close a given screen. No upgrade for units, limit of 12 units per tile, units only show up in the city screen when fortified. Waging war has never been easier with unit stacks auto attacking in the most appropriate order. Graphics are mundane. Unit flags are poorly placed making identifying units awkward and unclear. The Wonder movies are well done and actually go with the flow of game play. However, all things considered, this is as good - and just as much fun - as any other variant of this high-addiction-risk franchise. Rating 72%
Obscura: Not clearly expressed or easily understood. (Oxford Dictionary.) George Lucas once said a motion picture is never finished, it just escapes or words similar. This could also apply to games and could be fairly suppositioned that Arcanum must have escaped well prior to completion. A huge vast portmanteau sandbox of a game with no tutorials, this is no “my first cRPG”. Perhaps prescribe “three-wheeler” Fall Out 1 for non-RPG playing friends and family as a fun trainer and introduction to the world of role-playing. Patience is a virtue, a virtue much needed if you are to get into this RPG. If, up to now, your main supply of fun in gaming was strategy or adventure or shooters, run, run away now! This is an RPGer’s RPG of the save frequently, die frequently variety. Unlike most RPGs you start out as an individual protagonist on your own and gradually build up your collection of NPC followers. Be warned, accumulation of NPCs can take a while with the possible exception of the first. One of the more innovative features provides opportunity for evolution thru out the game of Good and Evil alignments depending on your actions (as in real life). Voice “acting” is mercifully sparse, as are game options regarding graphics, sound etc. If you enjoy running back and forth fetching items and executing various tasks for strangers and getting killed frequently (save, die, reload, die, reload etc) then Arcanum is your game. If you like wolves, wolves and more wolves and killing rats as big as overfed chihuahuas you’re gonna love it. If you like having to talk to every single character met to get info that should just be readily available, like locations on a map for example, you’re gonna love it! Tedious chores are something you can find in 9/10 typical fields of employment so why oh why would anyone want to play a game filled with tedious chores? And yet paradoxically, altho this game has a long list of defects, this does not stop Arcanum from being loads of fun! Rating: 60%
Play a sorcerer on desolate floating islands of 5 different gods performing many missions. The developers must have been trying to cram as many genres as possible into this game. An early attempt at 3D RTS, Sacrifice was an ambitious hybrid of action, combat, fantasy, RTS and other gaming genre elements all wrapped in third person perspective. A complex game with a steep learning curve plus unique game mechanics requiring patience and persistence to master. Sacrifice has only 3 very basic tutorials, so for extra training play the 1st mission of each god. Your main most frequent goal is the unsavory and very old testament activity of desecrating opponents alters via sacrificing your own on enemy alters. Thus destroying enemy abilities to regenerate. With NO DIFFICULTY SETTING choose carefully which god served in each mission. As you progress you will please some gods but anger others, limiting choices later. Combining strong narrative with all the other genres floating around gives a slight adventure element. Interface is a bit awkward and takes getting used to. Period 3D graphix are a matter of taste altho Sacrifice does well with a colourful and almost arthouse feel to visuals. Atmospheric synthesizer-orchestral soundtrack, quality sound fx and voice acting raise the general gaming experience. Single player campaign mode alone has over 40 parts plus built-in scenario creation tools give Sacrifice high replay ability for those who can survive abseiling a sheer cliff learning curve. This cliff may have caused cult status instead of the hit now defunct Southern Californian Shiny Entertainment no doubt hoped Sacrifice would be. Amongst other interface issues, zoom is very limited. It’s not possible to zoom out far enough to see all your units during combat, including aerial units. There’s NO SPEED ADJUSTMENT in the game - a bit odd for an RTS. But Sacrifice is an odd game! However, large amounts of patience and endurance can reward you with fun gaming. Rating 63%
For some unknown reason this game is presented as being wacky zany hilarious madcap off-the-wall satirical commentary on both sci-fi and social networking. It is neither. It must be assumed the makers of this game had their sense of humour bred out of them many generations ago. They must also be very lazy and very cheap. There is NO ANIMATION and the graphics appear to have been generated from stock images on a free 'toon app. Likewise the endlessly looped theme music sounds like it came from the pre-set samples on a cheap synth and/or sequencer - but nevermind, at least you can mute that. We must imagine the "developers" of this game sitting around a big desk in their luxuriously appointed airconditioned offices somewhere in Los Angeles snorting Mexican marching powder up their noses, "brain-storming" all day and night and coming up with this "brilliant concept", passing it on to the "concept development" people, followed by a similar "snort and brain-storm" session until finally this mind-fart of a game is squeezed out and they all sit around in a substance induced delusion congratulating one another. So what is this product actually about? Become a space cadet - a Redshirt. Climb the career ladder, friend, flirt and party with other crew members on delapadated spacestation Megladon 9 - oh, the spacestation is in need of maintenance, that must be the humour part. All activities, personal interactions and other chores are carried out via a simulated social network. Eat, sleep, work. Go on away missions - beware, there is no actual adventure element here, you merely "beam down" Star Trek style and casualties are tallied up, if you're not killed you return to Megladon 9 and continue the cycle - eat, sleep, work. And that's about it in this graphically static adventure set in deep space. RATING: A very generous 22%
