Rise Of Nations: Rise of Legends
Posted September 19, 2006
Being a fan of the real time strategy genre I was pretty excited to get my hands on Rise of Legends. Developed by Big Huge Games and published by Microsoft, Rise of Legends looks to improve and expand on the large success of its predecessor Rise of Nations. While I never got a chance to play the original I had heard good things about it. All too often games are sloppily put together and rushed onto shelves in an attempt to capitalize on the success of such franchises as Warcraft, Command and Conquer, and Diablo just to name a few; and mostly they fail. That's not to say that Rise of Legends is the perfect game; far from it but you could certainly do far worse.
Gameplay:
Those of you who are big RTS fans know that quite a bit of thought must go into a constant system of checks and balances in order to ensure that once race isn't completely dominant. In the same respect you as the player are required to put in many hours with your chosen race to come up with your best course of action for building troop barracks, mining resources, and raising heroes in the most efficient way possible so that you can overpower your enemy and control the lands. Rise of Legends is no exception. Thankfully there is the obligatory single player campaign that will generally serve as little more than a course in the basic controls of the game. The key problem I have with Rise of Legends is in the fact that the single player game is quite shallow for the overall potential that is on display.
Set in a world named Aio three races battle for control of the lands, and the destruction of the enemy races. You start as the Vinci, who have the ability to make super advanced machines certainly revolutionary for the time setting in which the game gives you the impression that you're in, think Leonardo and you'll have the idea of what is the inspiration for this race. The Alin are a race that is based in magic. The Arabian Nights tales are the basis for this race. Also present is the Coutl, a race based on the Mayans, although they are an alien race of self appointed gods. I can't really go into much detail on the races as their individual stories don't really pull you in and make you understand their reason for being or their desire for power. Herein lay the problem with Rise of Legends. The story is choppy and doesn't make much sense, for lack of a better term it's just not very engaging. While some of the campaign missions can be quite challenging as a whole the game doesn't seem to ramp up in difficulty as you may expect. Even if you feel as though you're stumbling through a mission chances are you will still come out on top. The same goes for the quick match portion of the game unless you are playing in the higher difficulty levels.
As is generally the case for me, the majority of my time playing RTS style games is spent in the quickmatch portion. At least until I feel comfortable enough with my level of skill to take me into the online ranks. As I stated before the easier difficulty levels were disappointingly easy, so if you've played a few RTS titles in the past you may want to bump the difficulty up a bit in order to practice against the computer AI. This will cause your opponents to do some things that will certainly challenge your ability and teach you the necessary skills to compete against your friends or an online adversary.
A couple connection issues kept me from completing more than one full battle online. The interface for finding online matches is very easy but a couple bugs in the system could prove to be frustrating at times. In my first and only online match to date I was quickly disposed of and left alone with my shame. Even though I felt fairly confident in my skill level it wasn't surprising to see that the online community is full of extremely competent players. I will be returning to redeem myself after I've picked up some more practice time.
Graphics:
Rise of Legends benefits greatly from a very nice overall design, each race receives a truly unique look and feel. The landscapes are nicely rendered as well as the respective units for each race. Where the visuals in the game are lacking is the cutscenes which don't really add to the depth of the game, at times they seem very drawn out and tedious to watch. The single player campaign borders on downright boring at times and watching these mini movies doesn't help matters.
Audio:
The sound effects are severely lacking. Where you would expect huge explosions from a building being destroyed or a devastating blow from one of your hero's special attacks the sound falls flat. I've played many RTS games that have sounded far too busy while playing and almost seem overwhelming at times. Rise of legends is the exact opposite in this respect. Instead the game seems calm and quiet at times even though there is a ton of action on the screen. To compliment the poor cut scene footage Big Huge Games got poor voice actors. This made watching them even more daunting than they would have been if you could have just read subtitles while watching what's unfolding on the screen at the very least this would have been incentive to watch them.
Conclusion:
With a patch for the online portion and an expansion or two, Rise of Legends could easily become a great RTS game. Until then the lack of depth in the single player campaign and the overall retread feel the game gives you could leave this title in obscurity. My scores may seem unusual but the fact that the multiplayer potential is very good assuming you can find a couple people to play the game with. Since Rise of Legends is a PC title I couldn't very well recommend renting it, but if you're looking for a game that you can play with a couple friends or possibly don't have another RTS game for online play then this title certainly wouldn't make a bad choice. I decided to swing toward recommended for those people who don't have another of the popular RTS games available.
Gameplay:
Those of you who are big RTS fans know that quite a bit of thought must go into a constant system of checks and balances in order to ensure that once race isn't completely dominant. In the same respect you as the player are required to put in many hours with your chosen race to come up with your best course of action for building troop barracks, mining resources, and raising heroes in the most efficient way possible so that you can overpower your enemy and control the lands. Rise of Legends is no exception. Thankfully there is the obligatory single player campaign that will generally serve as little more than a course in the basic controls of the game. The key problem I have with Rise of Legends is in the fact that the single player game is quite shallow for the overall potential that is on display.
Set in a world named Aio three races battle for control of the lands, and the destruction of the enemy races. You start as the Vinci, who have the ability to make super advanced machines certainly revolutionary for the time setting in which the game gives you the impression that you're in, think Leonardo and you'll have the idea of what is the inspiration for this race. The Alin are a race that is based in magic. The Arabian Nights tales are the basis for this race. Also present is the Coutl, a race based on the Mayans, although they are an alien race of self appointed gods. I can't really go into much detail on the races as their individual stories don't really pull you in and make you understand their reason for being or their desire for power. Herein lay the problem with Rise of Legends. The story is choppy and doesn't make much sense, for lack of a better term it's just not very engaging. While some of the campaign missions can be quite challenging as a whole the game doesn't seem to ramp up in difficulty as you may expect. Even if you feel as though you're stumbling through a mission chances are you will still come out on top. The same goes for the quick match portion of the game unless you are playing in the higher difficulty levels.
As is generally the case for me, the majority of my time playing RTS style games is spent in the quickmatch portion. At least until I feel comfortable enough with my level of skill to take me into the online ranks. As I stated before the easier difficulty levels were disappointingly easy, so if you've played a few RTS titles in the past you may want to bump the difficulty up a bit in order to practice against the computer AI. This will cause your opponents to do some things that will certainly challenge your ability and teach you the necessary skills to compete against your friends or an online adversary.
A couple connection issues kept me from completing more than one full battle online. The interface for finding online matches is very easy but a couple bugs in the system could prove to be frustrating at times. In my first and only online match to date I was quickly disposed of and left alone with my shame. Even though I felt fairly confident in my skill level it wasn't surprising to see that the online community is full of extremely competent players. I will be returning to redeem myself after I've picked up some more practice time.
Graphics:
Rise of Legends benefits greatly from a very nice overall design, each race receives a truly unique look and feel. The landscapes are nicely rendered as well as the respective units for each race. Where the visuals in the game are lacking is the cutscenes which don't really add to the depth of the game, at times they seem very drawn out and tedious to watch. The single player campaign borders on downright boring at times and watching these mini movies doesn't help matters.
Audio:
The sound effects are severely lacking. Where you would expect huge explosions from a building being destroyed or a devastating blow from one of your hero's special attacks the sound falls flat. I've played many RTS games that have sounded far too busy while playing and almost seem overwhelming at times. Rise of legends is the exact opposite in this respect. Instead the game seems calm and quiet at times even though there is a ton of action on the screen. To compliment the poor cut scene footage Big Huge Games got poor voice actors. This made watching them even more daunting than they would have been if you could have just read subtitles while watching what's unfolding on the screen at the very least this would have been incentive to watch them.
Conclusion:
With a patch for the online portion and an expansion or two, Rise of Legends could easily become a great RTS game. Until then the lack of depth in the single player campaign and the overall retread feel the game gives you could leave this title in obscurity. My scores may seem unusual but the fact that the multiplayer potential is very good assuming you can find a couple people to play the game with. Since Rise of Legends is a PC title I couldn't very well recommend renting it, but if you're looking for a game that you can play with a couple friends or possibly don't have another RTS game for online play then this title certainly wouldn't make a bad choice. I decided to swing toward recommended for those people who don't have another of the popular RTS games available.