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Excellent RPG/RTS experience

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 48 / 53
Date: May 17, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Continuing the path set by its predecessor, Spellforce 2: Shadow Wars continues along the RTS/RPG hybrid path. You create an avatar; equip them with weapons, armor, and other items, and increase their levels by gaining experience, just like in a traditional RPG. Your avatar is joined on his/her quest by several heroes whom you can also equip with the items you will acquire on your journeys. Your avatar and these heroes form the traditional RPG party that travels through the game advancing the story, slaying monsters, and completing numerous side quests. Your avatar, as well as one of the companion heroes, is completely under your control: you can distribute his/her skills just as you like, making them into the RPG archetype you want, be it fighter, mage, archer, healer or a combination of the others. The other heroes have pre-set "classes" that limit how much you can customize them; one becomes as fighter, another a healer, etc. A total of five heroes will eventually join your avatar. The way the characters level up is perhaps the game's biggest departure from its predecessor. You no longer have to manage attributes such as strength and intelligence, and the number of available skills is greatly reduced. Spellcasters no longer gain spells by finding spell scrolls, but rather by adding skills. Adding points into skills such as Black magic or Nature Magic gives mages the chance of gaining new and more powerful spells. The heroes gain levels less quickly that the avatar; the maximum level for the avatar is 30, while it is 24 for heroes. However, unlike Spellforce, your heroes are always with the avatar; no need to find rune monuments to summon them, and since they gain levels as the avatar does, there is no need to find new runes to gain more powerful heroes. This also works the heroes into the story, making it more involving. Since your characters no longer gain stats, their growth in power is tied much more to the equipment they find, making the completing of side quests much more imperative.

During their journeys, your avatar and his hero companions will often find it necessary to call upon the services of armies to accomplish their objectives. This is where the game's RTS elements emerge. You gain workers who gather resources and build the structures necessary to summon the military units for your army. You can also build defensive structures such as archer towers to keep foes at bay. The RTS element of the game is far less altered from Spellforce. The first games had six races from which you could summon armies: Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Trolls, and Dark Elves. Spellforce 2 adds the Barbarians, Gargoyles, and Shadows. However, the nine races are divided into the three factions: The Realm (Humans, Elves, Dwarves), The Clans (Orcs, Trolls, Barbarians), and The Pact (Dark Elves, Gargoyles, and Shadows). Unlike Spellforce, where you had to find runes and plans to summon armies from rune monuments, in Spellforce 2 you are given a headquarters as a base of operations. You gain access to new races, and more advanced buildings by completing quests. Instead of simply finding runes, there are representatives from each faction who will "join" you to grant you the ability to build armies of their faction. Instead of their levels being fixed at the level of the worker rune you used, as in Spellforce, your units also level along with the avatar, albeit much more slowly; their maximum level is 18. Of course, you can still zoom in and out from an overhead view to a ground level "chase cam", showing your avatar and units up-close. This is a great perspective to appreciate the impressive architecture of some of the game's structures.

The game is surprisingly non-linear. You can revisit previously conquered lands to complete side quests or even scour the map for a previously missed treasure. There is even one map that is your own personal kingdom, and you can return there time and again to complete a number of side quests. The main single-player campaign story is surprisingly engaging, and the side quests have enough variety to avoid monotony; one particular quest involves playing a game known as Drakkar with a city's best players to earn a prize. In addition to the main campaign, further playtime can be spent in Skirmish, Free Game, and multiplayer modes. There is a lot of game to go around here.

The two factors that kept me from rating this game 5 stars were the leveling system, and the erratic difficulty. Experience is usually gained only by defeating difficult foes or by completing quests, so I often found my character waiting on the cusp of the next level for quite a while, waiting to reach the level requirement for that sweet sword or suit of armor that I found a while ago. The simplification of the RPG system was a bit bothersome, but it's a calculated risk, since the elimination of excessive micro-management should help less hard-core RPGers get into the game, even though the uber-RPG players might be turned off at the prospect of not being able to fully customize their character. The skill system also prevents you from piling a ton of skill points into one area; you must distribute skill points in other areas at some point before advancing the skills with the most points invested in them. Luckily, this doesn't force you to waste skill points on magic when you want to make a shredding swordfighter. The difficulty of the game can also rise and fall in roller coaster fashion; I found some maps to be frustratingly difficult while others were quite easy.

Overall, my gripes are minor, and this game is a very worthy successor to Spellforce: The Order of Dawn. I'm already excited about this game having two excellent expansions, just as its predecessor did. Spellforce 2: Shadow Wars is a fun and satisfying experience. Highly recommended.

SpellForce 2 - the next gen RTS game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 21 / 25
Date: May 04, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Yes, its true - I regard not games like Age of Empires 3 or Battle for Middleearth II as next gen RTS game. Its SpellForce 2.

At first you must consider the main features. SF2 is a combination of two genres - RTS & RPG. This means that you can switch to a 3rd person view, collect items, solve quests and get skills for your avatar & hero party through a skill tree.

Then there is the phantastic graphic. Its really amazing. The shader effects make it look very realistic. Sound are also just great.

Fascinating is especially the mission design & the story concept. I really enjoyed it and its really a way different from other RTS games. On the whole the single player campaign has a playtime of more than 40 hours. But then there is also a free game mode campaign which has nearly the same playtime and can be played as well with friends over the internet.

I can recommend it to any fan of RTS & RPG games. Its just the perfect blend between Dungeon Siege & Age of Empires.

Get it!

Truth about Starforce & Spellforce 2.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 15 / 18
Date: August 04, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The Review that states the following is incorrect:

"These guys need to wise up and stop putting those drivers in their games. The only thing it hurts is legitimate owners. My last hard drive, Spellforce 1 decided my DVD burner was illegitimate and so started corrupting files; wonderful. Spent 40 bucks for something that ate my computer."

This so-called review nearly swayed me from purchasing this game, after all who wants software that will ruin your pc. However wanting to see actual info about starforce i learned that the writer of the "review" knows little or nothing about this title. Starforce can be debated later, i personally wont buy a product with it, but spellforce 2 does not have said software. Publisher JoWood dropped starforce in all US releases, and its not on any US version of spellforce 2.

as an aside it was in spellforce 1.

See http://www.boycottstarforce.net/ for an accurate listing on games that use starforce.

Good, not great

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: June 25, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Spellforce 2 is very unique, and is an effective mix of both RTS and RPG, however, it does neither genre particularly well. My biggest complaint is that all online screenshots look amazing, but even a good computer will have trouble running this game with the graphics settings remotely high....and in this game, there is a big drop off between High and Medium graphics settings. If you have a great cpu setup, you will probably have a good game experience.

Spellforce 2 doesn't live up to expectations

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 11 / 17
Date: May 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I just picked up a copy of Spellforce 2: Shadow Wars today, after reading the great reviews on here and hearing that it was a "truly revolutionary contribution" in the RTS genre from my gaming shop. I believe it is only mediocre at best.

Spellforce 2, is indeed a combination of an RTS and an RPG, although it only manages to do both of those on a marginal level. It plays like an RTS (in an RTS engine) with a character leveling and skill development system built in.

The first thing I noticed about it were badly dated graphics. Warcraft III, Command and Conquer Generals and Warhammer: Dawn of War look far better and are much more polished than this title. The animations (such as the way a character runs and walks) are jerky and rushed, the spells are boring and oversimplified, in fact, you don't even have control over when to use them, the AI decides for you.

The game runs well, mostly because of its poor graphics.

I expected originality from this title, and that appears to have been the developers selling point. It fails to meet its only goal, to be different from other RTS titles. It has a very simple cast of units, nothing out of the ordinary (soldier, crossbowman, mage, super-unit) The game box claims to have nine playable sides, but there are only three in reality, because the three "factions" have three "races" inside of them, which each consist of two to four units and one or two buildings each.

I've played many RTS titles, and originality and depth go a long way with me. This title has neither, and I believe the developer has no right to advertise either of those as its strong points.

If you're looking for originality in either the RTS or the RPG genre, look elsewhere, this title fails to meet the quality expectations of a $40 game in both of the genres it tries to be simultaneously.

WOW - Brilliant!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: January 23, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Wonderful fusion of RTS and RPG
This is the best game I have played in years.

Yes, there are a few things about the RTS part missing which makes you have to micro manage units sometimes. And the RPG part isn't really all that important, decisions often don't matter as the end result is the same. And yes, it is a "hard" game. But I love it :-)

I'm almost done with the campaign and thats only after a heck of a lot of time spent gaming. Usually by now I'd be bored and onto another game. But not spellforce 2, I'm really enjoying this.

Somewhat disappointing.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: September 21, 2006
Author: Amazon User

First off: the U.S. version of the game doesn't use StarForce. I've had it installed for weeks and the StarForce removal tool finds nothing to remove.

Now for the real review, albeit a real short one: I wanted to love this game. It looked great, a smooth hybrid between two genres we know and love, with some great graphics. Well, the graphics are there, for sure - the shadows are dynamic and the world looks pretty nice. However, enemy corpses disappear instantly after some time, and there is also no physics system. These two things are big minuses in my book.

The RTS element of this game is very weak. Eventually you will have more resources than you can spend, once you make a big, massive army and go rip apart any mission objectives in your path. There isn't much variety in unit types, even across the three racial "groups."

I'd consider it much more of an RPG. But even then, the character diversity doesn't come until you're level 20+; there's a surprising number of spells and abilities once you're at the bottom of the trees (Combat or Magic). Equipment you come across is unimportant other than weapons.

Everything in the game has a ton of HP, and does damage "per second", not per hit. This means that the combat is kind of "smoothed out" and takes a long time to kill things. The combat just couldn't keep me interested. Spellforce 2 feels amateurish, even though it has a long story, some impressive graphics, and makes for a decent hybrid. Too many things were overlooked, most importantly those that should make it fun. Sorry guys, but I'm disappointed.

Bought it despite some bad reviews and glad I did!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: March 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

There are actually two campaign games to play to level 30. The regular one and the free mode. Free mode is harder to play at first, but there are ways to make it easier as you move on. Like playing a map over and over just hitting the bases and gaining the quickest Xp. Then when you are a few levels higher, it is not bad at all. I got to level 30 in 12 evenings. My only gripe is level 30 is too low as this game was a lot of fun to play. I wish it went to level 100+.

One good thing about free mode is you can keep on playing at level 30 and just do the harder maps getting better equipment for your team. Then when you play with others online you will have a better character.

In summary: This game was worth twice what I paid for it. I wish I was like you and haven't bought it yet, so I could play it for the first time!!!

Great, BUT??????

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: September 22, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I love this program and play it as much as time allows, (20 hrs. wk.), but there is one problem that I run into all the time and that is that after about one hours worth of play, the sound of the dialogue goes off and the written dialogue passes by to fast I don't have time to read or respond to it. Don't know why, but it is not so good.

Yes, it does use STARFORCE

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 10 / 21
Date: August 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

* It is in the game listing as of 8/10/2006(Boycott Starforce)
* It is mentioned in the forum as using STARFORCE + causing problems(Boycott Starforce)
* This is Aspyr Media

* Also check out the bugs/patch + system requirement complaints

JoWood said "future" releases won't use STARFORCE.
What future releases ... which distributor ?

I know of several games/producers that issued a "remove STARFORCE" patch ... one company said they would stop adding STARFORCE after their latest game ... I know of no company that pulled product; removed STARFORCE; then ran more production without STARFORCE included ... someone can correct me if I'm in error

So, I guess if this stays "as is", we either have to buy this game here with STARFORCE or do without.
If I see updated info regarding this issue, I will alter my review.

When this game is available without STARFORCE; I will purchase it.

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