Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends

When Rise of Nations was released, I instantly fell in love with it because it has some of the most unique ideas captured into it. This game combined the best of both worlds containing the in-depth strategy of turn-based strategy games along with the heart pounding action of real-time strategy games; and the result was a blast to play. Now it is time for their second outing and instead of sticking with the “real” history roots of the first game, they have gone into a world that has epic battles that are decided by people using high-end technology and various sorts of magic.

What I really liked about this game is that instead of the tried-and-true clique fantasy games that usually have trolls, goblins, and orcs battling it out the factions are based off other choices. For the demo there are two factions to be. First there is the Vinci faction which is named after Leonardo da Vinci and this faction's people use highly advanced things that only Leonardo could have conceived. The other faction that you can use in the demo is the Alim which is modeled after the stories of the Arabian Nights.

One of the nice things about this is that the developers really wanted to make sure that the game’s different races are really distinct from one another. Everything that you do in the game is different, from the artwork to the various strategies that you will have to employ against the enemies. In a way it reminded me of how StarCraft works, and I will be using this comparison a little bit throughout this preview.

For instance the Vinci faction is pure technologist in many different respects. Another identifying marker of this race is just like Leonardo really loves art in its various forms so will this particular race. This means that your city will be a thing of wonder, from its tall buildings that are very tough and can withstand the enemy’s barrage of offensive tactics. If you have played StarCraft think of this race as the Protoss that builds expensive things but they will stand the test of time due to their heavy firepower and big defense.

The Alim on the other hand is not as powerful as the Vinci and instead of focusing on technology they are more into magic side of things. This race can create cheap disposable units in the blink of an eye. If you try to play this race like the Vinci you will fail quickly. Once again going to my StarCraft analogy, please think of this race like the Zerg who can create units really fast, but you have to have a lot of them to go into battle, especially against the Vinci, because if you do, you will quickly realize the folly of your decision.

Besides the distinct races, there are a couple of other new features that make it into this game. First of all, following the trend of other RTS games, Rise of Legends now has various Heroes that can improve their levels by participating in various battles. My favorite thing is that there are only two resources to gather: Timonium (raw materials) and wealth (which you get from caravans). This makes going into battle a lot easier instead of worrying about fifty thousand different types of resources. Another thing that is new is Storming Sites. This is a quick way to capture sites to zero health as well as keeping the building as well as some of the enemy’s foot soldiers to keep for your own army.

The last new addition that I want to mention is that Neutral sites will play a big part of this game. You see that when you first start the game you will be surrounded by various neutral sites, which usually have precious Timonium resource sites on them. There are a couple things that you can do with them: capture them, buy them, or eventually if you trade long enough with them they will voluntary come into your nation. Each way has its pros and cons, the first way means that you will get to harvest those previous minerals quickly. The second way is that it is expensive but you will also obtain their foot soldiers guarding the place. The last way is the most time consuming way but you get all of the benefits from the first two ways. It is up to you to decide how you do this. Once they are a part of your nation your borders will increase and you will be able to build more structures to advance your civilization.

This demo of the game allows players to check out one of the campaign modes that might make it into the final game. Players will be under the control of the Vinci faction as they are trying to take over their enemy. While this campaign is fun to play with it is really short and can be beaten pretty quickly, especially if you are familiar with how games of this nature work. The other option in this demo is to play quick games that allow you to play as either faction. This lets players really dive into the different aspects of both factions to find how they will enjoy playing as either one of them.

Even though this is only a preview build I must say that the graphics are shaping up quite nicely. When this game is finally released upon the gaming public it will be able to compete with other well-known games in the same genre, which seems to be the growing trend lately.

I can not wait until the full version of this game is released so I can really dive deep into seeing everything that this game truly offers gamers.