Rise of Nations

"Big Huge Games lives up to it's name with 'Nations'."

Rise Of Nations: What do you see in the title? A failed history lesson on the world? Another attempt at edutainment? A run of the mill RTS game? After playtesting it, I am proud to say it is neither of them. 'Nations' (as I will refer to it in this review) is a well-executed, engrossing, and captivating RTS. Fans of the genre will not want to put it down.

Created by Big Huge Games and Brian Reynolds, a talented developer in RTS gaming, Nations follows the recipe for most other RTS games. Gather, build, fight. However, unlike games such as 'Age Of Empires' or 'Warcraft II/III', you have many new features and options. First off, and most noticeable, there is the Age Advance system. Starting off at the Ancient age, you are given four types of research to study; Military, Civic, Commerce and Science. You can choose to focus research your military, gaining new units and powers, but may find yourself in a hole when you run out of resources due to the lack of commerce later on. Or, will you start off with a weak military, build up multiple cities and get many resources, then produce many low-power units and overpower your enemy? There are many paths to choose, and as you research more, new Age Advances are opened. Moving on from the Ancient to the Classical age, you gain new technology, buildings, and unit upgrades. You can hold defensive with forts and towers, or you can upgrade units to make them more powerful.

What separates Nations from other games is the multitude of units available. Most unit producing buildings such as barracks, factories and shipyards produce up to four unit types, from submarines, who are good at destroying ships but weak to helicopters to special ops units, who are fast moving and invisible unless moving or using abilities, but cannot shoot units without using his sniper skill, using his equivalent of energy in other games, so save it for important targets. He can also sabotage buildings and are good for scouting out the map. These units are only available in the later stages of the game, and each stage (ranging from Ancient to Information ages), and totaling seven in all, has its own set of units for each type of building. Do the math, that's a lot of units, approx. 84 in all!

These age differences can make for some truly entertaining battles. You may be in the modern age, but the poor sap across the river may only be in the medieval age. However, even players who are not as far in the technology tree as others can still inflict damage upon the advanced players, which makes the game more fun for newer or inexperienced players, especially in multiplay.

The single player portion of the game pits you as one of the many nations, ranging from the Japanese, Germans, Russians and French to the Egyptians, Romans, Nubians and Bantu. You view the world from a tactical map similar to Risk, and can choose to wage war with any of the existing nations, and try to 'conquer the world', the name of the campaign. Age advances occur every four turns, unlike multiplay or quick battles, so campaigns can go fast. You choose where to battle, can play special cards that give bonuses such as resources or technology that can make or break a battle. When it's time to fight you are taken to the battlefield in a number of scenarios ranging from "Find the enemy encampment and destroy it" to "Defend your city or take the enemy capital in 90 minutes." It's a blast to play as any of the nations, as they each have their own special powers. For example, the Russians have the power of the motherland, causing more damage to enemies in your territory, and any plunder taken when enemies attack goes to you, while the Egyptians have the power of the Nile, so they get an extra farm per city, and cheaper upgrades at the Granary building. These special powers can turn the tide in battles, and can add even more to the multitude of strategy available.

Worker AI is incredible and a welcome change to the genre. Units who are idle for a set period of time, controlled by you, will either gather resources at an available woodcutters' camp, mine or empty stations such as oil wells or farms, or will help with building, or both. You can set these on the unit production building, and it's a very helpful feature that saves you from micromanaging each unit's schedule. Another bonus is unlike 'Warcraft', resources are persistent, so you won't have to search all over for another oil well or forest to gather from.

Sound is noticeable when necessary, devoid of the backtalk from units as present in Starcraft or Red Alert 2, and the music plays occasionally, setting the tune for the theme and level. Units play instead marching sounds for foot troops, horse sound effects for mounted soldiers, and tank and jeep sounds for armor and generals, respectively.

Rise of Nations is an engrossing and entertaining RTS and will have you playing it for days. It earns every point of 10, all the Game Of The Year awards (Gamespot, GameSpy), and has been named Strategy GOTY by Game Revolution, GameSpy and TechTV. It's genre-newbie friendly gameplay, including a tutorial the length of a normal game will captivate both seasoned RTS players and new players alike. If you don't own Nations, go see what all of the fuss is about. I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/24/04