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Sacrifice is a tremendous masterpiece from Shiny that ranks as one
of the most unique and compelling strategy games ever made. Despite a
plethora of glowing reviews from critics, the game's sales figure was
merely lukewarm, making it one of the most underrated classics. Some
excerpts from the excellent review at IGN explains why:
"Sacrifice
is a little hard to describe if you aren't sitting in front of the
computer looking at it as we discovered when I tried to explain the
game mechanics to the rest of the guys here while they were loading up
for some multiplayer fun. Basically, it is an RTS game with action and
role-playing elements in it. The default camera view is stuck behind
the head of your wizard. You can rotate the camera around his head and
zoom in and out but it will always follow you around. Unfortunately
there are a couple of little problems when climbing large mountains
that make it hard to see what is going on. Mostly though, it works very
well and gives an incredibly frenetic feel to the action that makes you
worry about not only your creatures but yourself as well.
Anyway,
your character is your general, wizard, unit factory, research bay,
resource collector, etc... All of the normal buildings and producers of
a normal RTS rolled into one. There are two resources in the game and
come in the form of souls and mana. There are a set number of souls on
a board, so the more you get, the less the enemy has. So how do you get
souls? You convert them with one of your spells. Once they are
converted, you can use them to summon creatures. Each of the creatures
has a different soul and mana cost to summon depending on their
strength and abilities. You need mana to cast all of these spells, so
that means you need manaliths. Manaliths are structures that are used
to collect mana from the mana fountains. Once you have a couple of
those, you are good to go.
The main point that I need to get
across here is that you are going to have to abandon your ideas about
the traditional RTS. This game does not play like one. There is an
extensive tutorial series to help you learn, but you really have to
spend some time with it before you can get the strategies down. But the
single player experience lets you build up slowly and forces you to
utilize a lot of basic strategies as you go.
Spells in
Sacrifice are divided into three different categories that are
conveniently located at the bottom of the screen an easy to use
interface that takes up almost no space. First we have the creature
spells. You'll be using these the most as creatures are the brunt of
your offensive. As you go through the game and increase in level, you
gain new creature spells depending on which god you are working for at
the time. The creatures in Sacrifice range from the downright bizarre
to the horribly twisted. You'll get the more normal creatures like
Persephone's Rangers to the huge multi-winged insect like Phoenix of
Pyro to the freaky Abominations that throw bits of their intestines at
enemies. Some of the creatures have the ability to cast spells as well.
If you have a bunch of creatures selected, the highest-ranking
creature's ability will be used. It's a nifty way to organize things
and can really pump the strategy value up.
The next set of
spells is the effect spells such as direct damage and healing spells.
And these are a doosey to behold. When you get into the higher levels,
there are some incredible spells that do a whole lot of damage and
affect tons of creatures. You can see some of them in the shots below,
but man, when you're in the middle of a fight and a volcano erupts
beneath your feet, it really scares the crap out of you. All of these
spells are designed to get you into the action along with your troops.
It definitely adds an element of danger and excitement that gets
addicting really quick. Running around the field casting lighting or
frost spells is a riot. And like all Shiny games, there is some great
humor as well. James actually has a spell that shoots a cow into the
air, which proceeds to flip, tumble, and dive into the target causing
shockwaves and mass damage. It's fun and deadly. A great combination.
The
last category of spells is the structures. These spells are used to
build your manaliths, attach guardian creatures to manaliths and
altars, desecrate enemy altars, convert souls, and teleport around the
map. The teleport function is really terrific as the maps are pretty
large. This way, you can zap around to any of your structures in just a
second.
So what's the point of the game? Well to prove that
you're the baddest wizard in the world. Well, there's more to it in the
single player. The story behind the game goes a little like this: You
play the role of a wizard that has traveled across space and time to
escape the destruction that was destroyed your home world. You land in
the astral realm of the island world that Sacrifice takes place in and
find a world that has been split asunder by the follies of man. The
world is made up of many islands floating in a sea of nothingness. Each
of these islands is owned by one of the five gods: Persephone goddess
of life and justice, Charnel god of strife and slaughter, James god of
earth, Stratos god of air and the heavens, and Pyro god of fire and
destruction. As a wayward wizard, you may ally yourself with any of the
gods. Each will grant you different spells and boons as you increase in
level. You begin your adventure by picking one of the five gods. Finish
whatever menial task was given in the first level and then the story
really begins. An old prophet appears to the gods and tells of the
destruction of the world and that it is brought about by one of the
gods. This of course sets off the petty personalities and a war begins
in which you will play a huge part.
How you play this part is
up to you and one of the reasons that this game has so much
replayability. You are given the choice of the five gods at the
beginning of each level (at least for a while but hold on a sec). When
you run up to their likeness, a small explanation of the task they
desire will be explained to you. There are nine missions for each of
the gods plus the final level for each. So you can go through the game
working for just one god, or go through working through each of them.
You'll receive different sets of spells from each god, so using the
rounded approach may be a good idea.
You will eventually need
to make choices. The gods aren't really fond of each other and some
will eventually give you an ultimatum. For example, when I was playing
the game through as an avatar of Persephone, Charnel got a bit testy
and told me that he would close off his help if I went any farther. It
adds an interesting element to the game that is fun to experiment with.
Levels come with a bunch of different objectives. The one most
used is the desecration of an enemy altar. Each wizard needs an altar,
so you gotta get to the enemy altar and sacrifice a creature to
desecrate it. It looks beautiful and you can hear the grunts of dismay
from the creatures being sacrificed. Other objectives include finding
certain creatures and killing them, or destroying a structure, or
finding some information. But all of these objectives will be frowned
upon by at least one of the other gods, which means you'll be hearing
from one of that god's friendly little wizards. And that is when the
fun really starts. The computer can be incredibly ruthless. And in some
of the later levels, they start out with a whole lot more than you do.
And it gets butt hard. But still, it is beatable, it just takes a
little creativity and planning and the ability to remember to save when
you do something right.
Then comes the multiplayer. Oh this is
some fun stuff. There are a few different games to choose from that
will have you desecrating altars, killing creatures the fastest,
capturing manaliths the fastest, collecting souls the fastest. These
games are all a buttload of fun and take different strategies to win.
It certainly adds a whole lot of fun as you can pick any wizard from
the game and any of the gods you like. There are options to set your
wizard's level to start and stop at any level, cut off and on friendly
fire, add souls and neutral hostile units. We've had a lot of fun
playing although the AI in these multiplayer games doesn't see quite as
ruthless or bright as it is in the single player game. There are only
four players allowed in each game, but any more and it would be a bit
too chaotic for your own good.
And now that we've gotten all
of that out of the way, I see that I've completely left out one of the
most impressive aspects of the game, the graphics. It is one of the
most artistic and impressive works I've seen in the industry in a long
time. Not only are they beautiful but they're also incredibly creative.
The creatures especially are just a joy to zoom up on. And the
landscapes! Wow they're nice. And the engine allows for a far depth of
field and still runs very, very smoothly. And then there's the sky, and
the special effects... Amazing, just really amazing. And the kudos keep
rolling in with the incredible sound quality that this game delivers.
The voice-overs are excellent coming from both no-names and big names
such as Tim Curry (who does a great job as Stratos by the way).
Everything is done well. The music, the effects, the speech... Man
alive, the production value on this game is high.
So what does
this all mean? This means that if your computer can handle this game,
and if you like action and strategy games, you need to go out and buy
this game now. You'll find tons of fun with going through the single
player game in different ways and tons more fun with the multiplayer.
And they include a very easy to use and powerful editor to create your
own scenarios and multiplayer levels. You can import your own sound
bytes and all of that good stuff to create your own storylines and
campaigns. This is a hugely robust game overflowing with character and
creativity. Sacrifice shines like a freaky star in a field of overused
ideas and clones. Go get it."
In the crowded arena of RTS, it
is rare to find an addictive game. It is even rarer for that game to
qualify as "art." With a superb blend of wondrous art and addictive
gameplay, Sacrifice is a rare gem that every strategy fan should have
in their collection and play at least twice. Highly underrated,
revolutionary masterpiece.
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