Besieger

There is a new Real Time Strategy game on the block and it is entitled Besieger. To help differentiate between the massive RTS games on the market, developers have to do something to make their game stand out, from the setting, new gameplay twists, or doing something completely innovative. If developers don’t do this, then their game might be mixed in with all the other games.

Keeping this factor in mind Primal Software, the developers of Besieger, decided to place more emphasis on enormous battles. While many RTS games only allow a certain amount of people in your civilization, this game only limits you by the amount of houses built. The way it works is really simple, you build a house, and it will automatically build five workers for you. After you get your workers, and military buildings constructed, you can send a worker and it will be converted to that military skill. So if you sent it in a Calvary building, it will come out riding a horse. Best thing about this setup is once you lose a character, the house it came out of will produce another one in place of him. So if you have the time and willpower you can create an army that would make many Generals of the world jealous.

The game plays just like many other RTS games, players will have to gather resources before they are able to create a lively town. Once they do that they will have to create a solid defense so that when an enemy comes and tries to attack you they will run into some resistance, even if your army is not as big as theirs.

Another unique thing about this game is that even though you build siege weapons is that they still require workers in order to work. Gone are the days when you build a simple battering ram and it “magically” moves and works all by itself. To keep the game from getting repetitive as possible the game offers over twenty different kinds of units, which range from Calvary, siege weapons, and even flying machines. So it is rare to see someone use the exact same kinds of units as you use, so many battles will be unique and different.

Even though this game is still in beta form, the graphics are really looking sharp. The levels that the players will find themselves playing in are huge. It takes a long time to get from one end of the map to the other, and that is what I really like in these sort of games, because it makes the games last longer. The landscapes players see in this game are modeled to perfection, from the tress, animals, people, and buildings; literally everything looks gorgeous.

Besieger’s graphic engine does something that is not seen in many games of this caliber, and that is damage modeling for almost anything you see. When you send workers to go chop down a tree, while they are doing that you will see woodchips surrounding the tree. When you destroy a building it will literally start to crumble little by little, while in most RTS games the building is whole then turns to rubble. It is great that the developers wanted to show the actual destruction process and makes it feel that you are actually doing something when you send myriads of men to decimate a town.

Another thing this game has going for it is the weather changes. Not only will you have to worry about what the enemy does, you will have to worry about what nature will do to you. The game has a “realistic” day and night cycle that lasts about fifteen minutes to go through one full day. This can come to your advantage if you decided to attack by night, you will have the secrecy of darkness to sneak in and cause havoc.

While players get full control over the camera, it will take a while to get adjusted to it. The reason for this it that players get a full 360 degrees of movement with it, along with the ability to zoom in and out. At times you will be going around a mountain and if you don’t pull your camera around in time you could get in deep trouble. After enough practice, the camera won’t be that much of an issue to players anymore.

So far this game is shaping up to be really good, keep your eyes out for this game when it releases.