Now one thing is for sure … there are definitely no shortage of RTS or 3^rd person action games out on the market these days. Everything from conquering civilizations to using Gods to destroy your enemy using a huge army can be found in droves, along with tons of games which allow you to run and gun or hack and slash your way through a barrage of enemies, so how do you know what to pick if you happen to be a fan of both but only have enough cash for one title? The answer is simple … Spellforce: The Order of Dawn by Phenomic. Spellforce blends in 3^rd person fantasy action with a really good RTS engine, and pulls it off really, really nicely.

Spellforce is essentially a new breed of game that has been labeled as a HBRTS (Hero Based Real Time Strategy) title by its creators. In simple terms, this means that you get all of the troop creation and item gathering goodness that you’d expect to see in an RTS title, but also get full control of your character (known as your Avatar) as well. At first, you select your ideal character from a good sized list of options, including sex, class (magic based like wizards or necros or fighter based like warriors), and appearance, and then off you go to the tutorial to begin your journey and lessons on how to play to help ultimately take control of the runestones and plans (I’ll explain that in a sec), and use your army and wits to overcome the final war of destruction. In addition, the game utilizes a level up system that falls in line with an RPG title, since points for different skills can be distributed as you see fit.

The overall build of the game really may not seem all that unique when you look at it from a high level overview. The 3^rd person action parts of the game are played out through the W,A,S, and D keys on the keyboard with a magic or ability bar at the bottom of the screen. By rolling the mouse wheel back, the camera changes to an overhead shot where the controls become standard to an RTS title since left clicking will select a character, holding the left mouse button down and dragging selects multiple armies (you can also do this in 3^rd person mode which is pretty cool), and much of the game will focus on things that we’ve all seen and done before while playing an RTS title like creating workers to mine stone and iron, gather food, and build structures like towers, lodges, and storehouses. While this all sounds very familiar, the blending of the 3^rd person action opportunities and the RTS style of the game overall really works out well, and the real creativity and newness of this HBRTS starts coming into play when you begin digging a little more under the surface. 

The runestones, as I mentioned earlier, can play an important part in the whole scheme of the game from the RTS perspective. See, Runestones are utilized in order to create new races and specific heroes to be summoned out and to fight or work by your side. You start with humans, but eventually will be able to utilize up to six different races to help you out like Dwarves, Elves, Orcs, Trolls and Dark Elves to add to your humans that you can make. Along these lines, races consist of a variety of different soldiers that can be brought to life to help in planning your ultimate strategy. These workers also can level up themselves to a degree to help in boosting the speed of your item production. It’s kind of neat to watch your workers go from workers to artisans and become a professional in their class. 

The second important part of the whole RTS thing here is the use of plans that can be acquired as you progress through the game. Runestones are used to create summoning ability for races themselves … but the plans are what are used to create specific types of soldiers along with a variety of building to help you build your colonies from the ground up. For example, you may start with a limited supply of buildings and some human workers, but soon you will have the plans available to create soldiers and scouts to help you fight rather than build. Then, you muster up some courage to go and explore a new part of the map and come across a goblin encampment with your troops. You destroy the encampment, find the plans for a Cleric, and voila … you can now make a cleric. Some new class plans will have buildings that you will have to produce in order to summon them, but most of the time the building plans are close by so it doesn’t cause too much of a problem.

There are a couple of unique things about Spellforce (other than the rune and plan creation thing), the first of which being the overall camera or viewpoint ability. In typical RTS fashion, a simple click will select your main character or one in your army, or you can select multiple units by dragging the mouse over them. OK, we’ve all been there done that … but lets say that your 50-man army is charging down a hill and into a ravine to meet a goblin army head on. You can then change the camera to a 3^rd person perspective to control the avatar in action style format and offer more of an action based gameplay element … not to mention give you a front row to the unraveling chaos and war that is spreading out in front of you which was pretty darned cool. Many of us were amazed when we watched Mel Gibson charge with his army into the middle of the battlefield at the Battle of Sterling … well, now you can be in that position and lead your army right into the middle of a brutal battle all in third person perspective glory!

Another thing that I thought was really unique to Spellforce that a lot of other titles that blend different styles haven’t really been able to do is to create a game that not only works for gamers who enjoy one genre over the other but also to give them the other genre that is balanced out well enough to make the overall game enjoyable. I personally tend to be more of an action based gamer than an RTS nut, but I found that due to the fact I was able to change around on the fly for a little more direct control, it really made the RTS element of the game just as enjoyable for me overall.

Graphically, Spellforce looked really good overall, even if it’s nothing from a color or environmental perspective that will blow you out of your chair. The colors looked nice, and the environments were well done and many had enough size to allow you some room to move … not to mention having some really huge army battles break out as well. You could literally get some fights going during parts of this game that will remind you of something out of the Lord of the Rings or something with tons of action, chaos, and violence to satisfy your medieval hack and slash thirst.

The sound in Spellforce was also decent, but I would have enjoyed hearing some more of the orchestrated music tracks going while I was playing. Many times it just seemed a little too quiet for me (unless a fight was breaking out), but fortunately when battles did occur the speakers were filled with the sounds of shouting, screaming, and the clashing of metal or thudding of weapons as some really nasty brawls broke out here and there. The voiceovers were a little William Shatnerish here and there and a little overdone at times, and sometimes they were a bit repetitive, but they didn’t really cause me to want to turn the game off or anything extreme like that.

Spellforce game? Around fifty bucks. Computer to play it on? Five hundred to a thousand dollars. Leading your huge army into certain bloody death against a giant mix of demons and other scary creatures IN FULL 3^RD PERSON PLAYER CONTROL? Priceless. Seriously, I really have to give some credit to the folks at Phenomic here for Spellforce. If you enjoy third person action titles or RTS games, and enjoy some really good battles in between building and resource gathering all wrapped around a good vs. evil story which is interesting and contains some decent plot twists, you will definitely want to check out Spellforce. 

Gameplay: 8.3
The combination of RTS and 3^rd person gameplay was done really well in my opinion, and the ability to make armies from a mix of six different races was pretty neat. The controls are easy to get into, and there’s really not a lot that you’ll need to struggle to figure out even with a lot that was done in the game.

Graphics: 8.1
The graphics were colorful and stood out well, and even when zooming the camera in the characters contained some decent detail (even if the faces were a bit blurry and a couple of models had a Michael Jackson nose). The overall environmental graphics for Spellforce were a bit jaggy and linear in a lot of places though, but of course getting to jump into an unbelievable battle with 50 or more warriors and wizards duking it out adds some bonus points.

Sound: 7.9
The sound in Spellforce wasn’t too bad. I really liked the music that they added into the game, but there were more times than not that I felt music should have been added in or more prominent to really help with the atmosphere. The voiceovers weren’t spectacular overall, but nothing that made me want to turn the game off.

Difficulty: Medium
While the game can get challenging when getting assaulted by waves of monsters, the controls are easy to pick up and get into which helps in ease of creating and sending new troops to the front lines if needed.

Concept: 8.5
Definitely a good job done here. The blending of the two game styles was done very well, and Phenomic did a good job in ensuring that all of the new RTS aspects or 3^rd person things were simple to get into and figure out.

Multiplayer: N/A

There is multiplayer, but I could never find anyone else on when I tried to play. I created games sometimes too, but no one ever showed up.

Overall: 8.4
If you enjoy RTS games, you may want to try out Spellforce. If you like 3^rd person action titles, you may want to try Spellforce. It does a good job in mixing the two together, and provides a pretty entertaining story to boot. Phenomic is definitely on the right track here with this game.