Reviews / previews
In the flood of real-time strategy games we've
endured in the last 18 months, Rival Realms is just
one more piece of flotsam and jetsam that's washed
up on our shores.
Initially, this Warcraft clone seems pleasant enough.
You can choose from among three races: humans,
elves, and greenskins. (An orc by any other name
would smell as foul.) You have generous
opportunities for harvesting, building, and attacking,
with three 20-mission campaigns and a smattering of
individual missions. We get a good scenario editor
for whipping up home-brewed maps. We get Internet,
LAN, modem, and serial play.
And, finally, we get some interesting wrinkles--such
as magic items for individual troops, experience
levels and troop carryover from mission to mission,
formations, neutral
monsters guarding
treasure and
resources, and
more.
So where's the
rub?
The first thing that
smacks you in the
eye is the dated
graphics. The three
races are too like
one another. The AI simply crumbles when it meets
up with a human opponent experienced in RTS
games. Pathfinding is unreliable.
Mostly, though, Rival Realms suffers from a "been
there, done that" feel and fails to hold interest. It
brings forward the basic gameplay of Blizzard's
classic, but manages to leave behind that game's
charm, polish, and drama.-- Mark Asher / GamePro
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