Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War

The development tracks that Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War followed were hellacious. Handled by Stainless Steel Studios originally, the game took an enduring road to completion with them. The ironic part was that it didn’t even reach completion with Stainless Steel. They closed up shop before Rise & Fall could reach gold status and Midway handed over the title to another developer. If you have no idea what Stainless Steel Studios has done in the past, you don’t have to look any further than the original Empire Earth. Unlike Empire Earth, Rise & Fall isn’t going to receive as high of praise. It turns out to be one big mess – the concept wasn’t properly executed along with only being limited to four different factions to use.

The concept of Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War is a unique if I have to say so myself. Rather than being just another real-time strategy game, Stainless Steel wanted incorporate the authentic feeling of fighting on the battlefield with your men. You’ll jump into the shoes of legendary fighters to lead your men to victory within the third-person action mode. For all those strategy lovers, this is a chance to actually be the hero of the game rather than pointing and clicking your way to victory.

The game revolves around the basic set-up for any RTS – resource gathering and setting up new settlements. Managing peasants and their daily duties is still among the chores you have to decide upon. You must harvest gold, wood, and glory. Glory is received with building unique structures and accomplishing heroic feats. Glory is especially important when leveling up your hero and other military units. Outside of the fighting attributes, glory can be used on bonuses to harvest gold and wood faster. 

Staying on track though, Rise & Fall’s concept all is based around taking control over the heroes on the battlefield. You start off with a choice between two different heroes, both with different abilities and powers. You’ll be able to switch back and forth between how you would like to play the game. A few missions will deny you the ability to do so, but, nothing too drastic that will have you in pain just controlling the hero in the third-person mode. The heroes run the battlefield and are the major breaking point if you win the battle or not. There are some limitations for using the hero, such as the stamina. If you run out of stamina, you’ll be forced out of the third-person view and back into the traditional RTS view. The longer you are in the third-person mode, the better the chance you have of clearing out the battlefield.

Regrettably though, the key to victory all relies on rushing the opponent. Building as many units as you can, and then rushing before they are able to set up any type of defense usually guarantees a victory. The computer A.I. is nowhere near what I expect in my RTS titles. I want top-of-the-line strategists facing me when I about to release my troops on my opponents. In Rise & Fall, the enemy likes to sit back and give you as much time as you’d like to build up your troops to lead an attack. It isn’t exactly the smartest thing to do in a war and when the same feat repeats itself in several battles, the game becomes way too easy.

Arguably the best portion of Rise & Fall has to be the naval combat. Rise & Fall features gigantic ships that are used as barracks for your troops. I was surprised that this was heavily worked on, due to that it’s more enjoyable than the rest of the game. You can line up right next to another vessel and begin the sea battle with dueling one another. Boarding the enemy’s ship with grappling hooks and ramming the boats into one another helps clear the path to victory. Not only will you win the fight, but, you’ll be able to take control over the enemy’s ship for your own troops. 

The single-player campaign is abysmal. Two campaigns that ship with Rise & Fall are the worlds of Greece and Rome. Under the Greek campaign, you’ll be facing off against the Persians with Alexander the Great. The Rome campaign actually has you taking the role of the Egyptians as they fend off the onslaught of Roman invaders with Cleopatra. The writing, the characters, and cutscenes all play out like a school play. The third-person missions aren’t fresh at all. The campaign is a low point without a doubt.

There is a skirmish mode and multiplayer included in the final package. Multiplayer allows up to eight players to duke it out on the 24 maps provided. The games you participate in online will go the distance in how long they take to finish – make sure you eat within that time span!  The major key in determining victory is seizing as many outposts located on the map before anyone else does. Once that is accomplished, build up resources, and then wait till you have enough units to ambush your opponents. Not too much strategy involved in winning. The skirmish mode is a shoddy attempt of offline multiplayer with horrible computer A.I.

The graphics aren’t up to par with modern day RTS titles. The level and character design aren’t authentic nor are they artistic. The cutscenes are poorly put together, there’s clipping issues, and so many other technical faults. The third-person action mode doesn’t help out at all with the visuals. I could have overlooked the frame-rate issues if they had only occurred a few times, but a few times lead to a couple of times, a couple of times lead to several times, and several times lead to me losing count. The sound is considerably better, but it ends up being terribly clichéd. I received the exact same sound I expected when I popped in the game.  There’s nothing out of the ordinary with the audio.

Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War is a big disappointment. I had huge expectations for this real-time strategy game from the makers of Empire Earth. What I received was the original developers closing down and a feeling that this is still an incomplete game that Midway rushed to release. I can’t see any possible reason to purchase Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War besides any RTS nut looking for a quick fix.

Gameplay: 5.2
The only real win for any gamer within Rise & Fall will be the naval combat. Nothing else much left to talk about in terms that are positive.

Graphics: 5.7
Someone needs to hire a cinematics director to help guide game developers with cutscenes.

Sound: 6.0
At least this category resembles a shade of type of game it wanted to become. It is still way too clichéd to view it as a positive.

Difficulty: Easy
This game is a breeze. I had no problems beating my computer A.I. in skirmish or in the campaign.

Concept: 8.0
The concept sounded great in theory; it was just poorly executed. They could have struck gold here with more action involved in the RTS genre.

Multiplayer: 5.0
Bad, bad, bad! Only one thing is redeeming; the ability to save the game to show your friend later on how easy you are winning.

Overall: 5.7
I can’t find the means to play Rise & Fall again after finishing up the campaign. The multiplayer doesn’t deliver any type of replay value that drives me back to playing Rise & Fall. The campaign is short and the difficulty level is on the basic side of the river.