Spellforce Review
Spellforce is a very good game couched in a tough exterior. It's not easy to like - it took a lot of effort on my part before I could enjoy it. That, wrapped up with its high technical requirements and highly unorthodox gameplay, will likely scare a lot of less patient gamers away. If you don't really want to play a game that balances RPG and RTS well, and don't have a taste for learning complex systems to which you are not used to, then give this game a miss. It's a tough nut to crack, in all seriousness, and takes a good investment of time and intellect to reap rewards from it, but oh are those rewards sweet.
If you've played Warcraft 3, or better yet, Warlords Battlecry, then you probably have a pretty good idea of how a RPG/RTS hybrid works. Spellforce goes more the Warlords Battlecry route - that is to say, they made the RPG aspects of the game highly complex, customizeable, and integral to the gameplay. Unlike Battlecry, the RPG aspect is more a gameplay emphasis, and the game ultimately plays like an RPG with brief RTS interludes in many places, especially at the start. The system's a rather large and complex one to describe briefly, but suffice to say that there are 7 attributes, and a ridiculous number of skills. Every attribute contributes to a couple things, but ultimately it's impossible to develop your character in all directions. Since your character gains experience and levels, he also gains 'character points' and skill points to add to attributes and improve upon his skills. Your character doesn't get the benefit of choosing a race - but the statistic and skill system is sufficiently diverse to not make that a big issue, unless of course you really REALLY wanted to make a clone of Legolas, you damn hippy elf-lover. You can also recruit other heroes to help you out in battles, which is a plus.
The RTS side took a page from the book of Sacrifice, but makes it much more manageable. If you never played Sacrifice... well, lucky you. The game was pain, but it did have some very interesting ideas behind it, despite its absolutely atrocious execution. The basic theorem behind the game is that you summon your units from a temple, and use them in your battles. Of course, no one temple can manage to have so many people under its control at once, so you have a rather tangible limit. It tends to range between 20 and 50 soldiers on active duty, a number not too unlike Warcraft 3's. The temple also allows a number of workers, which are thankfully kept on a seperate tally from your soldiers. You're pretty much limited to 20 workers, though I have yet to encounter a real need for more. The ultimate result of that is a focus more upon have a balanced force and sound strategy, rather than a better economy. The management of your forces is a rather major theme of the game, and something you will need to do carefully. An interesting thing about that is the light side / dark side races: you can control multiple races at once, even races of opposite alignment - but since races are, indeed, races, soldiers of opposite alignments will attack one another on sight, and so cannot be used in the same group. Since the soldier limits are tallied according to race, you can actually have up to 300 soldiers and 120 workers at once, theoretically, so the game does not lack in battle scale if you hunger for massive engagements.
The most interesting side of the game, in my mind, is that it actually manages to represent a state of total war across a planet in real time very well. When you've conquered a territory, rather than having it be merely ear-marked among 'past accomplishments' the game continues to keep track of the settlement, and the resources it generates will flow to your coffers. Likewise, it can still be attacked by your opponents, so leaving a territory without soldiers other defenses can result in ground being completely retaken from you. The scale and intensity of the game is impressive, and makes for some very entertaining gameplay. In many respects, it's like a less open-ended, real-time version of Warlords: Battlecry 2, which is only a good thing. There's also extensive multiplay options, though you cannot do large cross-continent campaigns in multiplay.
What all of the above boils down to is a fairly complex, but very rewarding game to play. Victories tend to be hard fought but very rewarding, and the compute can actually give you a fair run for your money on a frequent basis. There's enough depth and scope to the gameplay to keep me interested for a long time, and the gameplay has yet to get even the slightest bit old. Rather unfortunately, I can't speak for the multiplayer content; I don't know anyone else with a copy of the game, as it did not have the most publicity prior to its release. It strikes me that a game or two of it could be quite fun, though I highly doubt it would ever garner great popularity with the masses.
Now that I've yammered your ears off about the gameplay, let's talk graphics. The game is quite good looking - it surpasses Warcraft 3, in my opinion, and manages to do a good job of making the world seem beautiful. Individual soldiers look good, and the environments are quite bright and attractive. On high settings, the game is just plain great looking. On low settings, it suffers a lot more, especially in terms of the portraits of your character and the lesser heroes. Because the game's scope makes it quite a power-suck, it's often a performance issue to set the graphics down, which is a pity, because the game looks good - but it plays far better than it looks anyhow, so I'll take the gameplay, thanks.
Story-wise, the game is both good and bad. The main, arcing plot is a little hackneyed. Take Lord of the Rings and mix in some ancient prophecies about misbalancing the forces of the world, along with a book that describes the attainment of ultimate power / unleashing ultimate evil, and you pretty much have Spellforce. This is not unique RPGs in any way, shape, or form. What is nice, though, is that the plot is a lot more character driven than most games. The RPG elements gives your character a very clearly defined role in the world and its story other than army commander, and makes you feel much more a part of the world. Sub-quests and conversations with important individuals makes the game a lot more diverse than one would expect of an RTS. The high customizability of your character also lends itself well to the story's progression, and your sense of placement within it.
The music is fair, with a few remarkable tunes. I wouldn't call it particularly good, and it certainly doesn't compare to Xenosaga or Warcraft 2, but it fits, and is rarely any worse than being merely uninteresting. Unfortunately, the game does not allow you to customize, so that I've noticed, so any desire you may have to put together your own soundtrack to the game is squashed in advance. Boo! The downside is the voice-acting. It is primarily poor - especially in regards to your character. A little more importantly, you can't even choose different voices: there is one male voice, and one female voice, and that's it. Other characters vary, some good, some bad, but generally the quality of the voice acting is quite decidedly sub-par.
I have yet to finish this game: it's freaking HUGE. Furthermore, I had to wait for a patch before it became particularly playable on my machine - something more than a little unfortunate. Thusly, I can't comments as to its replayability - it seems to me that it could be well-replayable given the nature of its play, but I can't say for certain.
Overall, if you have a high-end machine and the willingness to play through it, the game is quite good, and worth its price. If you're at all impatient, or just don't have a high fondness for games that can take literally a solid week to make any real progress in, then you'd be wiser to spend your money on Warcraft 3 or C&C Generals: Zero Hour.
Final Scores:
Replayability: Unrated - will update upon finishing
Gameplay: 9/10
Characters and Story: 8/10
Graphics: 9/10
Sound and Music: 6/10
Overall: 8/10