Heres an E3 memory. Im walking down the long hallway
between the big halls, when all of the sudden an attractive young woman (as if there is
any other kind at E3) spies my press badge and asks me if Ive seen the Interplay
booth. Nope, I tell her, but Ive got an appointment in an hour. She then asks if Id
like to see something really special now, and (no fool me) I say sure. So she leads
me to the well-guarded Interplay booth, where I am ushered over to a guy whos
playing a gamewell, a game like Ive never seen before. First of all its
beautifulit has amazing lighting effects and stunning creature models and a vast
game world. And its sort of crazy, tootheres tons of kinetic combat and
spells shooting off everywhere and something is going on about creatures sacrificing other
creatures on altars to their gods. What is this? I ask my guide. Its Sacrifice, Im
told, a new game by Shiny, makers of Earthworm Jim, MDK, and other good things. My God, I
say, my jaw agape. Why didnt anybody tell me about this?
I wasnt alone in my surprise,
either. Shiny held back on telling anyone about Sacrifice until it was just about done; in
fact, it should be out this winter. In fact, weve got a playable beta. In fact, we
love this game.
Weve
been playing our beta for about a week now, and while were going to reserve judgment
on things like gameplay and balance for the final review, we will unequivocally make this
pronouncement: Sacrifice is the most beautiful computer game weve ever played. This
is not something were saying lightly, either; Ive had people over to the
house, watched their jaws drop, and asked them if theyve ever seen a better-looking
game. Nope, they say. I lie awake in bed at night, trying to come up with a more gorgeous
titleUnreal? Nope. Quake III? No. Even better, the beta came with a notice that it
hadnt been optimized for speed yet, so we should expect some slowdowns. Well, weve
been running it on my 733 PIII with a GeForce2 and 128 MB of RAM, and I havent seen
a slowdown yet.
Sacrifice
is a difficult game to pigeonhole. In many ways, the game it plays most like is Mythin
both, you take command of a small army of troops and fight tactical real-time battles. But
unlike Myth, you can regenerate your troops in Sacrifice by recovering the souls of your
slain troops or converting the souls of your enemies. This adds a very interesting slant
to the game, as strategy focuses on not just killing enemies, but being able to summon
your sac doctors to fetch their souls back to your altar.
Sacrifice
has both a campaign and multi-player game. In the campaign game, you take the role of a
wizard who has fled his own world and now finds himself in a land dominated by five
powerful and squabbling gods. These include Persephone, a touchy nature goddess; James, a
peaceful earth god (who looks a lot like Earthworm Jim); Stratos, balloon-headed seeker
after knowledge; Pyro, a stogie-chomping captain of industry; and Charnel, whos just
evil. You can choose to serve any of these gods, and after you complete a mission for one
of them, youll often be given a chance to serve the others as well. Of course,
depending upon whom you serve and whom you fight against, some of the gods might
eventually take a dislike to you, but those are the risks. Each of the gods has its own
creatures and sets of spells, so theres plenty of gameplay variety.
In
gameplay, you control your wizard from a third-person perspective using the standard WASD
Quake controls; you cast spells, command troops, and summon creatures using the mouse
and/or hotkeys. Though it takes a while to get the hang of the game, thats mostly
because its different. Once you catch on, the interface is remarkably easy to use.
Though were just getting the feel for the game, play seems to focus on capturing
enemy souls without giving any of yours up and seizing manaliths, huge
fountains of magical energy. Having a bit of tactical savvy helps, too. Some creatures are
good at melee, some at ranged combat, some can fly. High ground matters. You can easily
group your creatures and arrange them in several formations, including line, circle,
guard, and phalanx. Theres also an RPGish element to the gameas you complete
missions, you gain new spells and access to more creatures. And what spells. As a wizard,
youll not be of much use in melee, but your spells are powerful, varied and look
incredible. From Rain of Frogs to the Rain of Fire, spells are quite effective and can
easily swing the course of combats.
While the campaign game features an
intriguing plot and great voice acting and dialogue, were really looking
forward to the multiplayer game. Weve only played skirmish so far, but it looks
awesome and the AI is pretty good. The game includes 35 multiplayer maps and a powerful
editing tool for creating new ones.
Again, weve only been playing the game for a week, and its
only the beta, but weve yet to see anything we dont like. In fact, GF! writer
Matt Blackburn was over the other day. Weve been on his cheap 2D RPG-playing
Scottish ass to get an upgrade to his computer, but hes so far held off. Until he
saw Sacrifice. Now he cant wait to get
up to speed. We predict a lot of folks will feel the same.
--Rick Fehrenbacher |