Mr. Subversive's Sacrifice Review
posted at 9:11 AM on Monday, December 4th, 2000
Introduction
My first experience with this game came a few months ago when I was reading Penny Arcade and Tycho had a link to the preview movie. Wow, I thought, strange, deformed creatures running around in a fantastically weird landscapes, sacrificing their own to please evil gods of death. There are places like that other than The Corporation.
Ever since then I was hooked. So when our own evil God of the Dead, Mr. Poppinfresh tossed a copy of Shiny's Sacrifice into the cubicle pit for content-starved writers to claw for, I kicked Rankinfile a few times in the face and nabbed it for myself. Well now, after long grueling days of playing and fending off Rank's attempts on my life, I can finally report back to you, our fine readers, on what this game is all about.
Playing Sacrifice is like playing the bastard love child of Tomb Raider and Starcraft with Salvador Dali thrown in for effect.
| Publisher |
| Shiny Interplay |
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| System Requirements: |
PII 300
650MB HD Space
64 MB Ram
8MB D3D video card. |
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| Reviewed Using: |
PIII 550
128 MB RAM
TNT 2 32MB |
Story
In the single player game, you play what amounts to a mercenary: a sorcerer for hire. Fleeing your home realm, which, it seems, you were partially responsible for destroying, you come upon a world of island continents floating in the sky (or space or something. No one ever gets specific just about where this realm lies). This plane is divided into five factions, each worshipping a different god.
Persephone holds dominion over Nature, and she's a stuck up bitch. James, who looks very much like the main character in Shiny's other game, Earthworm Jim, controls the Earth. Stratos is the God of Air with a smiley-faced balloon for a head. Pyro is a toadish-looking lord of Fire with a mindset oriented toward industry and labor. Finally, Charon is the God of Death and Torture, and he looks the part.
And hey, the gods don't like each other very much. They bicker constantly. In fact, for a good long while you spend the game playing them off of each other, selling your services to whichever God offers the most interesting job. That is, until the story kicks in, for it seems you aren't the only one that escaped the destruction of your former world. The demon Marduk, who blew it up when all you wanted him to do was smite your enemies, followed you here; and the Gods, like the smart cookies they are, immediately blame each other for his arrival. Soon enough, they've grouped into camps and full-blown war has broken out. You, of course, are in the thick of it, a heavenly catspaw while the Gods backstab and betray, form alliances and break them.
What's interesting is that the entire game until the very last mission is told entirely in flashback. When you screw up and reload, the conceit is that you've simply made a mistake in your narration. When you quit the game, come back, and load up where you left off, you're just remembering where you were in the tale.
Gameplay
Here is where I have a few problems with the game. It doesn't really know what it is. In places it wants to be a RTS. In other places, it's trying to be a Third Person Shooter.
As a sorcerer, your character's main strength is the ability to summon critters and create an army from them. Casting any kind of spell requires mana, and casting to summon creatures requires souls. More souls can be acquired by getting heathen souls and sacrificing them at your altar, thus 'converting' them. Mana is taken from big giant energy fountains, over which you can build structures called Manaliths in order to channel that energy directly to you. You win the level by desecrating your enemy's altar, destroying his foothold in the area. At the start of each mission, you have a your few souls banked and access to one or two mana geysers. Seems fairly simple.
Well, there are a few problems with this. For one thing, the camera always stays focused on your wizard, so you never get a good Birdseye view of the situation. There would be times when I was fighting battles, only I couldn't actually see a damn thing because either a creature was blocking the view, or I was standing on the side of a hill and all I could see was the ground below me. Furthermore, if you want to fight remotely, IE: sending your critters to parts of the map that aren't in your character's visual range, you need to command your creatures on the small radar circle in the bottom right corner. Not exactly exciting, that. Not really very accurate either. You can zoom in and out in your little radar circle, but it always stays centered on you. Therefore, you can't direct your creatures with any sort of strategy this way. It's limited to "go here," attack this," "guard that." You'd think that they'd having included a spell for remote viewing, or for allowing you to possess one of your critters. Nope.
Unfortunately, as a third person shooter, it's not a perfect game either. Your wizard has other offensive and defensive spells to employ, but they are designed mostly to support your creatures. After you cast a spell there is a sorta post-sex refractory period while you recharge it. This period gets longer the more powerful the spell is. You can cast other spells in your inventory, but your list tends to be fairly limited. You also cannot attack things physically with your wizard. There are no means for jumping or rolling. Many of your spells require you to fully stop in place to cast.
The spells, and creatures, you are given are wholly dependant on which gods you choose to serve. For instance, if you choose to serve Stratos for your fourth mission, you'll be given the level 4 Air spells and creatures.
It's worth noting that your critters are much more effective with you there casting spells from the sidelines. That being said, the ranges of many of the spells seem far two short to give you an effective support role. There are no true group buffing spells save one or two like the healing-aura spell and the chain-healing rainbow spell. Most of your spells either harass the enemy or damage him. I also wish that your beasties played off on each other better, buffing each other, or maybe combining to form new creatures.
On the whole, the best I managed, was a sort of uneasy alliance between RTS and TPS. I was never really able to settle into the hybrid playstyle. This is a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none sort of game. Of course, Mr. Poppinfresh had a copy and he'd always kick my ass during multiplay, so maybe it's just me.
Aesthetics
Here is where the game truly shines. Graphically it's incredible. Everything is twisted into Dali-esque contortions. Terrain morphs and deforms. Creatures are organic looking with weird things dangling off them here and there, and their designs are extremely original. If the camera view wasn't so confined I might have enjoyed it even more then I already do. Spell effects are, well, effective, especially the higher level spells like tornado and earthquake.
The only real problem I noticed was a tendency for the game to drop and add polygons all over the place. But this seemed to actually lend to the organic feel of the world, giving the impression that everything around you was constantly growing and shifting. The cutscenes are all rendered in-engine, and are effectively cinematic save for one problem I had which I will address below.
Sound
The sound is all orchestral music, lots of brass and very effective. Voice acting is a strong point of the game. Your wizard is a gritty, Clint Eastwood-sounding guy. Your owl-like familiar, who follows you around and gives you event updates, sounds like a prissy Brit. Your units all respond differently. I especially loved the Hellmouths, who sounded really reminiscent of a unit out of Starcraft. Another thing I enjoyed was how spells were spoken differently every time they were cast. It removed a lot of repetition from the game.
My only real wish is that the voices were actually synched with mouth movement. This detracted some from my enjoyment of any cinematic sequences, and left the characters, especially your main wizard, looking like fish gasping for water while their voices emanated from somewhere around their heads
Value
This is a good game to buy. Which God you accept tasks from affects how the story unfolds. The spells and creatures you receive differ depending on which God you're currently working for. The multiplayer aspect is very nice, and I think the game is well suited for it. The visuals are very impressive, and really tie up the package. All in all, you'll definitely spend more then a few days working this puppy. It's a well-rounded product.
Gameplay 3.5/5
No bouncing Laura boobs. No english-speaking Soviets. I is confused..."
Aesthetics 5/5
Hello Dali! I keep waiting to see melting watches and weird-ass giraffes.
Sounds 4.5/5
Great voices synched worse than a Jackie Chan movie.
Value 4/5
It may not be perfect, but if nothing else it rips out your eyes and juggles with them.
The Verdict 4/5
Slightly better then Poppinfresh's mom [ed- you are SO FIRED!]. Comes with the official Subversive Seal of Approval.
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