Sacrifice

"Be Ready To SACRIFICE Your Free Time With This Innovative Masterpiece!"

I play quite a few computer games. Mostly mediocre, some good, some crappy. And then there are the few games that allow me to remember why I play the damn things in the first place, not to mention changing the way I look at a genre. Sacrifice was able to do just that, not only giving a new look to some genres, but blended a fun atmosphere with serious gameplay, not to mention adding a strange sense of humor. This game was extremely enjoyable, and while it may not quench your thirst for a good RTS/action game immediately, after a few plays, you'll be drooling all over yourself at the possibilities of this boundless game. Well, perhaps I should explain myself. Let us begin.

This game is very hard to describe if you're not looking at it. I suggest you play a demo to get a basic idea of the game. It really blends a strategy game with action and a bit of role-playing. You control one character, using a camera with zooming abilities that will always stick to you. This may be hard to get used to, but it shouldn't cause many viewing problems at all. It gives a very frantic feel to the game because you're down there with the fighting, not hovering above everything like a god. And you're not a god, but something that can be killed right along with your allies.

Your character is your peasant, peon, mage, and all the other basic buildings and units in one person. There are two types of resources to get: Souls and Mana. Souls are not infinite, so you must grab as many as you can so your enemy won't steal them all. You must use a spell to convert them, and then you summon a creature using the soul. Different creatures need a different type of soul and varying amounts of mana. Mana is received from mana fountains, that are extracted from by manaliths. Manaliths are an invaluable structure, and you should use these often.

Anyway, now you get an idea of how this game pulls away from your traditional Blizzard RTS. If you are king of Starcraft, that won't get you anywhere. There is a tutorial, but you'll still need to play around with the game to get used to it. The single-player will slowly increase in difficulty, and allows you to get used to some of the basic strategies of the game.

Spells are located in three categories in an easy-to-use interface at the bottom of the screen. Everything you use in this game can be hot-keyed with a press of CTRL-SHIFT and a press of the key you want a certain command to go to. Change the hot-keys to a simple and easy to remember format early, and you'll reap the benefits, since you don't want to search around for a spell in the heat of battle. Remember, you're down there with the enemy, not hovering above them.

Anyway, the spells. There are three categories. Creatures is the first one. You summon creatures to use against the enemy. Most of your attacking force is from your creature spells, and the power of your creatures will increase as the game goes on.

Creatures are sometimes generic, like these sort of elf-ranger things, to freaky twisted beasts of hell, like the Abominations that throw their intestines at their foes. Creatures also have their own spells, which you usually do for them, although they'll sometimes do it themselves. When you have a creature selected, a menu next to it will appear with the effect. The highest-ranking creature will always have his/her/its spell shown (when you have more than one unit selected). Again, this shows a big aspect of organization and strategy.

Creatures can be organized in formations that you probably should get to know. Just hold down the right mouse button, and the formations will appear. If you memorize the formations' position on the menu, you can select your desired formation in a flash. This is another example of how easy this game CAN be for you.

The next type of spells are the direct spells, that you cast to hurt or heal a character directly from yourself. The damage spells are awesome, and late in the game, you'll feel like a god with your huge spells of death. When you're casually fighting (if that's possible) and suddenly a huge monoliths of destruction rages across the screen, you'll want to scream in terror and hide under your bed. You can hit yourself with your own spells, so launch the thing and get the hell out of there!!!

This is awesome because you'll feel like you're in the battlefield. Zapping people with lightning while charging across the screen is a blast! And as soon as you find the cow spell, you'll be ''testing'' it for hours.

The last spells are the structure spells. You can get all your basic resources using these spells, and also can zap yourself across the map with the teleport spell. These spells are important to desecrate altars, and convert souls, and lots more resource stuff.

Now what are you trying to do anyway?? Basically, you wanna kick arse with your wizard powers. You're a wizard that escaped from his homeworld (which was in turmoil) and traveled to the island-world where the game takes place. There you meet five gods, with completely different intentions. The world has been torn apart with the different humans joining each god and fighting one another over their god. The five gods are: Persephone (the nice god), Charnel (the evil god of death), James (god of earth), Stratos (god of air), and Pyro (god of fire and destruction).

You pretty much choose which god you want to work for. They'll reward you with their own units and spells if you help them out. Once you do their task in the level one, the story takes an early turn when a prophet tells of the destruction of the world from one of the gods. They bicker amongst themselves, and eventually war is started.

You can do whatever you want. Pick whichever one you want by walking up to their form and hearing what they want from you. Each god has nine missions, not counting a final battle. You can work with one god for the whole game, or choose different whenever you want. This will give you access to lots more spells.

The gods don't like each other at all, and if you play through a lot as say, Persephone, her opposite, Charnel, will get angry and won't allow you to work with him if you keep working with Persephone. So, there's more replayability to be had from these aspects.

There are various tasks to be done, but mostly you'll be desecrating altars. Each wizard has an altar, and if you sacrifice something there, their altar desecrated. What fun! Also, you'll be finding a certain creature/building and destroying it, or perhaps learning some information. No matter what you do, one of the gods will disapprove, which means you'll hear from the little wizard of each god.

This is where the game is cool. As soon as a god gets sick of you, he'll go all-out to kill you. Many times you'll be stuck with way less than him at the start of each level. You'll have to be creative, quick, and have an itchy finger at the save hot-key.

As for the multiplayer, this is another reason this game rules. You'll be desecrating altars, and collecting souls, and on and on and on. All of this in a race against your human opponent. There are heaps of strategies, and it's a ton of fun to be had. Pick your favorite god and wreak havoc. You can change a lot of settings, so you can customize the perfect multiplayer settings. The AI doesn't seem as tough in multiplayer, however. You can have up to four players, and any more would cause your brain to spin out of control with all that's happening.

Umm, so this sounds pretty cool so far, right? Well, I haven't gone over the great graphics yet! This was obviously a lot of work to get this engine together, but it's one of the most artistic and creative things on the PC. The creatures are all great to look at, as are the landscapes, and the sky and effects. This all runs at a fast pace, even though you're looking at quite a lot at the same time. Please look at some screenshots to get an idea of what I'm talking about!

On to the sounds, which are as great as the rest of the game! Each god has his own distinctive voice, and Tim Curry himself plays Stratos, and does a great job. The music and effects are also very well-done. You will not be disappointed.

The conclusion is that this game will amaze you if you have the tiniest bit of interest in action and strategy. If your PC can handle it, you'll spend hours playing the single-player with the different gods, and hours more on the addictive multiplayer. Not to mention the simple but powerful editor to create your own multiplayer scenarios. You can add your own sound bytes to make your own campaigns! This game is huge and is overflowing with fresh ideas. To quote IGN, ''Sacrifice shines like a freaky star in a field of overused ideas and clones.'' Couldn't have put it better myself. Please buy this game. Pretty please?

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ON TO THE RATINGS!

APPEAL: A decent menu and manual, but nothing special.
~8~
GRAPHICS: From the beautiful to the beasts of death, this game gives you every graphical aspect you'll think of, and it all is very nice to look at.
~10~
SOUND: Simply adds more character to the game. Awesome word all around, especially with the voice actors.
~10~
GAMEPLAY: After a bit of getting used to, the easy-to-use interface, different third-person views, and unique play makes you look differently at the strategy genre. However, the camera is a bit weird.
~9~
REPLAY VALUE: The different paths of the campaigns will keep you for hours, and the multiplayer will give you variety that will last months. Then there's the scenario editor that will make a great community on the internet.
~9~
OVERALL: This game is one of the most innovative games on the market, and will make strategy developers push themselves harder. Actually, the worst part about this game is that it's been out for a year, received tons of awards from IGN and PC Gamer, and is still overshadowed by Blizzard and the Command and Conquer games, both of which are fun, but are quite stagnant compared to this game. I really suggest that you buy it, not only to have fun, but to spread the word. Shiny deserves more than what they're getting.
~9~

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/06/02, Updated 11/06/02