It just so happens that the fate of some game projects arouses genuine interest even before their full release. Everyone’s attention is usually attracted by titles that, even at the stage of their formation, promise to thoroughly shake up some stagnant genre, demonstrating a whole bunch of original gameplay finds and by no means trivial "tricks". However, in our time there are more than enough such “braggarts”. Almost every second game under development tries to seem original. That’s right. Standing out from the general gray mass, albeit through mass PR zombies, is an incredibly important condition in these days for receiving any profit from a project.
Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War (the translation of the game, btw, into the great and mighty is carried out by the company "New Disk") I also wanted to become different. Why be modest – the brainchild has pre-release ambitions Stainless Steel Studios there would be enough reserve for a couple of RTS clones. Judge for yourself: a vigorous mixture of real-time strategy and hurricane action, an unprecedented scale of battles, an exciting plot, a batch of well-developed historical figures, a hardworking engine that can do us beautiful things without bringing the central PC components to our knees, and well-developed naval battles – the publisher was pleased. However, many development plans were never destined to come true. A few months before the premiere, the development studio gave a long life. The reason for disbanding the development team turned out to be quite the topic of the day – repeated delays in release deadlines. In any other situation, a game that had lost its “parents” at the creation stage would have followed its would-be creators. However Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War incredibly lucky. Having intelligently analyzed the emerging picture, the publisher Midway Games decided to bring the project to its logical conclusion, since most of the work on the title had already been successfully completed. The preparation of the game for release was undertaken by a little-known Pacific Beach Digital. It is worth noting that the developers coped with their task perfectly – Rise & Fall still made it to store shelves in more or less decent shape – only from the point of view of quality, the project, after the change of guardians, lost a lot.
The authors did not burden gamers with scientifically based historical calculations and premises. The plot of the game belongs to the genre of some kind of alternative history. Contrary to school textbooks, Alexander the Great does not at all shine with the desire to conquer the homeland of elephants, and the fragile Cleopatra, being not only seductive and wise, but also the warlike ruler of Egypt, does not disdain military affairs and, at every opportunity, bites into the thick of the massacre.
Putting aside the storyline tinsel, let’s try https://planetofbetscasino.co.uk/mobile-app/ to analyze the actual strategic possibilities Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War: whatever one may say, but unlike the game makers, the project did not have time to change its genre. Things are a little better here. The classic listing of available buildings and resources can be easily omitted, because in this regard the game is built according to standard RTS patterns. The “glory” parameter, which is responsible for the ruler’s prestige, deserves special mention. Of course, the more “glory” points the sovereign has in his pocket, the better. The resource is replenished in very simple ways: large-scale construction of architectural monuments, military expansion of neighbors and expansion of the borders of the base. But wasting these very “points” is a very, very responsible matter. “Glory” points can be spent both on signing contracts with various advisers and military-economic upgrades, and on self-improvement of the hero. Having reached a certain level, the "warlord" will be able to call upon his banners extremely useful assistants.
Troop management in the game is implemented in a very decent way. Units of the same type located nearby, without wasting time, unite into rectangular formations, hang out the battle flag and bark together in deep voices. True, in the heat of battle, the once orderly ranks instantly mix in the general commotion – the archers fearlessly aim at the enemy’s blades, which, however, do not always find the target the first time. Such things. The situation is also aggravated by the enemy AI, which in most cases is incapable of anything more than methodically reproducing new units. As a result, the gameplay stops in non-stop massacre. The cost of producing soldiers is minimal, and the maximum number of units in the army is quite strictly limited, as a result, bloody confrontations look like this. More and more columns of soldiers are moving from the base in a continuous stream, replacing those who fell on the battlefield. The enemy also does not waste time, replenishing its ranks with fresh batches of “cannon fodder”. And if the developers had forgotten to include the action component, which is discussed below, some battles could have lasted for many hours.
In such situations, omnipresent heroes come to the rescue. Having pressed the right button at the right moment, the player tries on the armor of the led commander and, with a wild cry, rushes into the very epicenter of events. What happens next is difficult to describe in literary language. Not paying attention to enemy arrows and swords, the protagonist, like a real Achilles, with light hand movements reduces the enemy’s troop strength exponentially. Effective, nothing to say. Graphic design makes it easy to return to reality Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War. If from a bird’s eye view the game still manages to look appropriate, then when the camera falls to the ground the picture turns into a slight resemblance to a Pinocchio show. Luckily it doesn’t last long. Heroes, according to the cunning idea of the game makers, are immortal. And it’s no match for Alexander the Great to fall from the dirty hands of an ordinary infantryman. Instead of a lifebar, ancient supermen have a special bar that is responsible for the amount of time that can be spent personally distributing slaps on an industrial scale. Each blow to the leader’s body treacherously takes away the number of action seconds, so it’s still worth dodging the enemy’s weapons. When the voiced line is reset, the game returns to the usual RTS mode, and the hero goes to lick the wounds received in battle.
Another trump card of the project looks no less impressive – naval battles. Wooden galleys are artistically shattered into splinters under the blows of a ram, crowds of hundreds of well-armed sailors clash with each other, archers finish off losers who have slipped into the water – noise, chaos and Hollywood scale reign everywhere. You can also burn ships. Completely.
Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War turned out to be extremely unbalanced. Next to the hurricane action and pretentious naval battles, there is a mediocre strategic mode and far from modern graphics.
Pros: detailed battles at sea; fast action.
Cons: sluggish strategic mode; mediocre graphics.