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Let me preface this review with something very important: Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War had potential, and it all went to waste. Initially, I was thrilled when the word came through that I'd be covering this title. I haven't had my strategy fix since Civilization IV, so I had high hopes that Rise & Fall would prove entertaining. I was wrong. I installed the game on my system, well above the minimum specifications in every category, and was immediately turned off by the terrible visuals and even worse camera.
There are several unique and interesting ideas thrown into Rise & Fall, but for the most part, they all fall flat when you realize that these new game elements are pretty much the only redeeming factors of a game that could have been so much more. Rise & Fall’s main feature consists of Hero Command Mode, in which you can move into soldier’s view after filling up your stamina, and take control of the main hero to simply annihilate armies of opponent soldiers with ease. This main hero, Cleopatra or Alexander the Great at the start, is the basis of the story arc, though the story is little more than atrocious looking cutscenes which you’ll undoubtedly want to skip, though I recommend watching for the comedic value of the terrible translations. To say any semblance of a story is uninspired would be an understatement. The use of your hero, however, becomes essential as you get further into the game, as leveling him up via kills and discovery, among other things, becomes essential as the need to hire advisers and level up your hero becomes obvious.
Another item that was done somewhat well is the naval battle. With your ship, you can bombard your ground based enemy and his cities. In naval battles, your bows and arrows will become your best friends, or, if you’d prefer to take control of the ship instead, it’s possible to grapple the opposing ship with your sailors to bring it close and board it, taking the enemy’s ship as your own. I just wish you good luck in having this all go down smoothly, as the game seems to have a mind of its own, and grappling doesn’t seem to work much of the time. If you’d like to save some time, you can simply ram the opposing ship for an instant kill, though I warn that it’s difficult to pull off correctly.
And you’ll want to save time. This is such a slow paced game that I wound up playing other things on my laptop beside me during the infinite build up before any battle could even be a thought in the back of my head. As is normal for the genre, mineral farming is still a common occurrence as is the creation of friendly units. For every outpost you control, however, you get an extra unit upon creation, which leads to extremely large battles towards the latter stages of the game in which you control tons of outposts. Large battles aren’t very fun, I might add. Grouping units together is almost worthless, and battles just become huge clusters of friend and foe fighting with the player hoping for the best. Strategy seems to be non-existent for most of the single player campaign aside from building walls. Just build lots of walls… they’re cheap and virtually indestructible. The tried and tested creation trees are still present, although in the form of hiring advisers with the glory earned from your main hero.
Controls are, simply put, stupid. As I first started playing, I often got so frustrated with the controls and trying to figure out which unit was which, that I would just shut the game off, realizing that I just wasn’t enjoying myself. Stainless Steel Studios could have done much more with this game, but instead they took a cookie cutter RTS game, dumbed it down and threw in a few novelty features. It shows.
I wanted a quick fix for my RTS jones, and Rise & Fall did not come through. What I got instead was an uninspired, poorly developed game which is outdone by games nearly five years senior. If you’ve considering purchasing this game, do yourself a favor and buy something fun, or go watch some paint dry. This game isn’t for anyone, and I’m insulted for having been subjected to it. I look forward to a company more capable of taking some of the worthwhile elements from Rise & Fall and putting them to some use. The only reason this game gets a score above absolute 0 is because they tried, and, as is typical in the genre, added an online element which can be fun for those who absolutely hate the quick rushes so typical of Blizzard games. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone could kill an enemy in Warcraft III quicker than someone could even pump out units in Rise & Fall. It’s that slow.
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