Just thought I would spread the word for this little known game with my own mini-review. The trial is virtually a complete game except your lacking 2 inventory spots out of 6 and some online content (player stats and unlimited replay download) it's $9.99 to buy the upgraded account but the trial is indefinate and you can play on all the servers so an excellent way to try and buy or just download and leave as is. I was reccomended this game a few weeks ago and as its free I thought it would be good for an hour or 2 of gameplay. Its now up there with my favourite games ever and I have actually bought the premium account and the boxset to give the developers my support as I believe it really is that good. The UK fanbase also seems very strong as everytime I have logged in to the multiplayer server (which the whole game is about, there is no singleplayer although you wouldn't want there to be) its been fairly full for such an unknown game. The game is a fantasy game with 2 traditional races of beasts and humans. You have one player as the commander who researchs technology and buildings, does magic spells to his players advantage and is overall in charge of the ultimate strategy. Next come squad leaders in the hierachy who have the ability to place spawn points and give commands to there 3 other squad members aswell as playing as a normal warrior player (like a fps/rpg). Finally are your average warriors with no responsibility except to kill the enemy. During the match you level up and able to increase various stats like strength, agility, intelligence and you also carry an inventory to buy approx 20 different items (this may seem low but your inventory is reset after every match and its more then enough to ensure that there isn't a stark contrast between people just joining the server and ones who have played for 30 minutes in the match and fully levelled up). You can also use your money to buy units, there are 4 free units and 3 paid for units and they different for each race. Finally when you kill sufficient enemies you can sell their souls to collect hellspawn units which there are 3 available and are all demons which are universal to both teams. As games go the graphics are average but as a free game who cares I would say it was around par with early WoW. The community is friendly althoug there are always a few idiots however the few times I have played as command I told my other players that I was still a noob in the role from the beggining and didn't get any aggy just advice from everyone else. As a general foot troop player it doesn't matter if your a noob providing you stay with your squad even the best of players can be taken out with a small organised mob. Screenshots: http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/action/sa...=convert&om_clk=gsupdates&tag=updates;title;2 Reviews: http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/savage2atorturedsoul Video of gameplay: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F0uKnHQ3KQ&feature=related Its supported by all platforms so no Operating system is left out Game website: http://www.savage2.com/en/main.php Gamerankings.com gives Savage 2 an average ratio score of 77 percent, whereas Metacritic.com gives the game an overall score of 75 out of 100. IGN gave an overall score of 8.5/10 due to "Graphics - A reasonable improvement over the previous version but it still a bit behind what we're seeing in other online games."
I've always been intrigued by this game. I never went for it in the past because I always assumed if it's try to do all 3 things, it probably won't do any of them especially well. I may give it a shot though so I can see for myself.
This is a great game! Here is my sort-of-review of it. Great game, although I think they could perhaps describe the game better! Maybe it's just me, but the thing about claiming to be "RTS/RPG/FPS", scared me off more than it attracted me. After playing it though, I realise what they are getting at, and it makes a lot more sense. Technically it does have elements of each of those game types, and it blends them together perfectly, and the result is a REALLY great game. However, to me it plays like a great action game, and thinking of all these individual elements just kinds of detracts from that. I wonder if it scares off more people than it attracts, because to a sceptical mind, a game with all those elements in it, sounds like a game with a possible identity crisis, or one that tried to do too much and ends up spreading things too thinly. Also, after I briefly read about the game and looked at some screenshots, I got the impression that each element was separate, almost like 3 separate mini games. This isn't the case. Perhaps it's just my fault for seeing it like that, but perhaps they could define it a bit better. The reality of this game, once I played it for myself, is that it basically, feels and plays like a team based FPS. It's played on big maps where you work together to build and capture bases and hinder the opposing teams progress at the same time. It's like Team Fortress, Tribes, and Unreal Tournament's Onslaught mode, only, it's better than all those games because it has far more depth. However, I think they could do a lot worse than to compare it to those games, because it plays very similarly - which is not a bad thing at all! You have to have decent FPS skills, you have to play as a team, and you have to gain knowledge of the game so you can see where your team's weak points are etc. None of this is different than those other games. Where it does differ (and improve), is that the classes have more about them. Everyone can "range" attack, which basically means you have some kind of projectile, either a machine gun, laser gun, crossbow, or you fire poison darts or whatever. So when you are using that, it just plays like Unreal Tournament, running around, strafing, and shooting at each other. But once you get close to someone, you then switch to your melee weapon, swords, daggers, whatever. At this point, it's *still* like Unreal Tournament in that you run around hacking and slashing and trying to keep your target in front of you while you smack them with your swords. It's better though, because you have a hotbar with some abilities on it. A "buff" spell/ability that boosts your stats for a brief moment, a damage over time ability, an area effect ability, etc.. So some RPG *elements* basically. It's great though, because the range weapons are just something to do while you are running at your enemy, and then once you get in range, you hack at each other but you use your skills on the hotbar and at this point it takes some experience and skill to know what to use and when is the best time. You can also dive left and right and backwards and you can jump attack, so again, similar to Unreal Tournament, just a bit more depth and more involving and more focused on the close range melee combat. As for the RTS thing, again, it's just some RTS elements. At no point did it feel anything like C&C or Supreme Commander or anything. You don't control any units or armies or anything like that. Rather, some of the classes can build stuff, so on your hotbar, along side the couple of range weapons and your melee attacks, is a build icon and when you click that, the camera zooms up and looks down and you can place structures. If you have played the likes of Team Fortress, or even better, "Enemy Territory: Quake Wars", it's just the same as the Engineer class which could build sentry guns (and in ET:QW, big attack towers etc), only again, it's been elaborated upon so besides the sentry guns, there are also gold mines and academies and other important buildings that need to be placed. When you place those, it generates cash for the team and unlocks other classes and abilities for the team to use. So really, what I'm trying to get at, is that it's a really fantastic game! But don't pay too much attention to the RPG/RTS thing. I think it's better than any usual online, team based, action-FPS, because it involves RPG and RTS elements to add some depth. It isn't however, enough RPG or RTS to attract someone who is only really looking for one of those elements. It's not really an RPG because there's no real story, no quests, no adventure, no exploring a big world. It's just not like that at all. Perhaps it could translate enough to entertain a hack n slash RPG fan, but to a traditional Baldur's Gate / Neverwinter Nights / or even a Final Fantasy style RPG fan, it really is nothing like that at all. The same goes for the RTS elements. A C&C, CoH, or Supreme Commander player is only going to be disappointed if they start this game, expecting to get some kind of RTS fix. There are no massive battles with tanks and choppers or anything like that. So rather than anyone mistaking it for a weak RPG/RTS, it should definitely be seen as an extremely strong FPS! In my opinion anyway. This is quibbling over definitions, but to me it was quite important, because if someone explained to me that it was a big online, team based, FPS, but with FAR more depth than any I had played before, I probably would have got around to playing it much sooner. Putting the definitions to the side, it's a great, solid action game. I was instantly drawn in, just like when I first played the likes of Tribes. The graphics are good, good sound, great animations, great big maps, lots of classes. The RPG elements really help it because the more you play, the more XP you earn which lets you tweak whichever class you are playing, which lets you customise the class more to suit you, and makes you stronger overall. The only other point worth mentioning, is that it's overwhelmingly complex at first. The tutorial did nothing to really explain how to play it well, it just teaches the very basics, and at this point, I still had no idea what kind of game it even was... Once I actually got online and started playing, I realised that it's a big FPS which I can handle well, but to get really good, you need to master the melee combat which will take a fair bit of practice. I find it best to just pick one class and try to play that class over and over until you get good with it. Then move on to another class, because it will be very different. There is also a lot to learn about how the teams work and what you are supposed to build and where. I think it would be VERY easy to get intimidated and scared off by this, or just feel like it's too much to learn. It isn't fun running around getting killed over and over in a matter of seconds, so it's a game you really have to stick with for a while. I think though, that this is a major positive in the long term because the vast amount of depth means you will still be enjoying it many many months or even years. Unlike Unreal Tourny where anyone with some decent FPS skills can quickly get great and then spend every game 'dominating' people, in this game there is so much more to do, so much more to learn, it will take a lot longer before it starts getting boring. Oh, and lastly, it's amazingly cheap! You can actually download the full game and play it for free! Only once you really start to love it, you'll realise that there are some things you will want from the premium upgrade, and because it's a one off payment of only $9.99, it seems like a really good idea. I haven't gone for that just yet because I've only played the game twice so far, but I suspect I'll be buying it very soon and then playing it for a long time in the future.
