Sacrifice

DEVELOPER : Shiny Entertainment
PUBLISHER : Interplay

 

System Requirements Pentium II 300MHz, 64MB RAM, TNT2 or better 3D card

Recommended Pentium II 550MHz, 128+ MB RAM, GeForce 3D card

Ratings
Code Issues Graphics: 10 - Oh my Gawd! Jaw dropping, glorious eye candy that is so beautiful that you will stop playing just to gawk. If you think I am kidding look at the screens. And the screens don't come close to doing justice to the beauty of this game. Sacrifice has done wonders for my relationship with my G-Force 3d card. Audio: 9 - Not only is the orchestral score great, but the unit acknowledgements are excellent and varied, particularly the "annoyed taunts" you get from picking on one unit. (You have played Starcraft, right?) Music stays on for this one. I also believe the narrator is the voice actor from Diablo II. Interface: 8 - If you have played Half-Life (or any other FPS) you know half of it, and if you have played any RTS you know the other half. Easy to use, quick to learn, the interface will not trouble you.	Play Issues Solo Play: 9 - Frantic RTS action hybrid rocks. Period. Replay Value: 8 - The campaign is not particularly long, but it is challenging, and offers choices of which god to serve, resulting in enormous character variation, and incentive to replay. Multiplay: 8 - Several game types and a variety of options add to the fun. Online matching works well and there was never a problem finding opponents. Learning Curve: 7 - Easy to play, but hard to win. Lack of difficulty settings not for the casual gamer. Excellent tutorial.
Other/Notes Documentation: 8 - Covers all of the basic information on how to play the game, and includes a description of low level spells and creatures for each god. No stats, (hit points, damage, armor) or information on higher level rewards. Full documentation for the scenario editor Other: - Very stable, and even ran on my old PII 266 with lowered graphics. Pros: Amazing graphics and audio, easy to learn interface and very fast paced action. Cons: Gameplay maybe too fast paced for some. Overall: 9.3 WOW! This game is fun, fast paced and very innovative. If you enjoy large doses of chaos and mayhem in your strategy, run-don't walk, to your nearest store and buy Sacrifice.

Wow. That pretty much sums up every aspect of Sacrifice. Unbelievable graphics, great sound, an original concept and story line all come together to create one heck of a gaming experience. Bottom line, Sacrifice is a fast paced hybrid of RTS and action gaming, that goes above and beyond expectations to deliver the goods. So save yourself some trouble and go out and buy it now; the time you spend reading this review could be spent playing this game!

Sacrifice is the story of Eldred, a wizard who has traveled across the ethereal to find himself in the midst of the squabbles of 5 gods. As Eldred you must continually decide which of these gods to serve at each step of the way. But make your choices carefully, for every decision you make has its rewards, and its consequences. If you cast your lot with Pyro and help drive the followers of Persephone out of her sacred Daven forests so Pyro can build new factories there, you may cut off your options to serve Persephone later. As you complete each mission, your patron will reward you with a new spell, and the ability to summon a new creature. And as an added bonus, if you complete the campaign, you have the option to use your character and your custom-built spell book in multiplayer games. This not only adds a good incentive to finish the campaign, it encourages you to go through several times to create a variety of custom options for MP games.

Like any RTS, Sacrifice is about resource management and fighting. But Sacrifice streamlines the resource management to allow you to focus on fighting. Instead of gold or wood, you must manage souls and manna.. Your patron god or goddess gives you a limited number of souls, which are used to summon creatures. Larger, more powerful creatures require more than one soul to summon. When a creature dies, it leaves a soul by its corpse. The souls of friendly creatures can easily be reclaimed by simply touching them, but the souls of your enemies are a bit more difficult to capture. To capture an enemy soul, one must summon a sacrifice doctor, who sucks the soul back into the body, imprisons the now reanimated creature, and brings it back to your altar to sacrifice the captive properly. Only then can you use the soul to add to your army. Any interruptions release the now reanimated creature back to the control of the original summoner!

The other difference between your typical RTS and Sacrifice is that your wizard is represented on the battlefield. Much like Activision's Battlezone, you are represented by a unit on the battlefield. A unit that can cast spells, give orders, or be killed in battle. But do not fear, for as the (temporarily) loyal servant of your God, death is but a small inconvenience. And as long as you can prevent your opponent from desecrating your altar, you can be reincarnated to continue your service. So instead of spending your time frantically building peasants and storehouses, you spend your time frantically healing units, casting spells, dodging enemy attacks, and racing around to capture fallen souls to build your army. And what an army you can build. The creatures are varied and incredibly wild looking. For the most part, they can be broken up into 4 classes, melee, ranged, flying and support. Many possess special abilities to further enhance their effectiveness. Two of my favorites are the Warmonger and the Silverback. The warmonger, (Pyro) is a giraffe like biped with a steam-powered machine gun, and a backpack full of steam for jetting quickly out of danger. Statos offers the silverback, an enormous half gorilla, half eagle that blasts it's foes with a cone of cold that freezes them in their tracks. There are creatures that can stun, drain manna or life, heal, play dead, or spit flammable oils, just to mention a few possibilities. With 50 creatures to chose from you have great possibilities for mayhem. To support your army, you also have spells. Need to clear out an area quickly? Try a volcano (see the screenshots), or just summon death to devastate your opponents. Protect yourself with stone skin, and cast plagues and chain lightning on your foes. And after you have cleansed the battlefield of your enemies, and driven his wizard from the field, convert fallen souls to strengthen your army, and then sacrifice your own creatures on his altar to desecrate it and win the game.

Sacrifice is just plain fun. The campaign is well written and quite challenging, (the last mission is especially brutal!). Multi-player offers a variety of game types and options to suite a variety of tastes. The skirmish AI is fairly good, but skilled players will want to take on two or more AIs. There are 33 MP/skirmish maps, and an excellent map/scenario editor is included with documentation and support! I also spotted about 50 more maps on the official web sight. The sound kicks ass. The orchestral score, the sfx and the voices are all top notch. And then there are the graphics.

Good graphics certainly do not make a poorly designed game better. But innovative, stunning, drop dead gorgeous graphics combined with a fun, playable, bug free game makes me want to drive to Shiny's headquarters and personally thank everyone who had a hand in creating this masterpiece. This is how it should be done. Really. I can't even begin to put into words how cool the creatures, landscapes, buildings, skies, and spell effects look. The colors are brilliant, the animations are fluid, the skies are roiling. Screens just don't come close to doing it justice. Sacrifice has the best graphics of any game I have played, ever.

The only possible shortcoming is the speed and difficulty of the game-play. If you are a casual gamer, and often find yourself pausing a game to give orders, you may be a bit overwhelmed. Sacrifice is fast paced, the missions are pretty tough, and there is no difficulty level. But if you love the blood, noise and frantic chaos of computer warfare, BUY THIS GAME.