Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War – PC – Review

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.