MMO: I have been able to add cast shadows to all static lights in my game without affecting framerate (as shown).

The image also shows the interface, with the black-on-gray boxes on the side. The space below the red health bar is where weapon-specific information is shown; the space below that is for context-sensitive information, such as inventory and levelup details.

Computer Games: Review: Rise and Fall (Midway Games)

Rise and Fall is a bit of an enigma. A strategy game whose first developer bit the dust halfway through, it has recieved only average ratings in general. (65% average) But now that the hype and disappointment have worn off, was it really that bad (or that good)?

I played the game on the following setup:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+

Nvidia 6600GT

768MB DDR

Windows XP Professional SP2

First Impressions: Installation went off without a hitch. The game uses Starforce for copy protection, but (despite public opinion) I have never had a problem with it. The game starts up fine, and I am able to get into scenarios and campaigns without any trouble. Multiplayer is another matter, though; I have never been able to even get to the lobby. Load times are long ~1 minute, which gets annoying fast. Patch installation is done from ingame (required for multiplayer).

Graphics: There is definitely some room for mixed opinions here. On the one hand, the game is beautiful. The environment is vibrant, with trees waving in the wind and grass that moves aside as your hero passes. The water is very nice-looking, and even the fog-of-war has some sense of style. Units are detailed (for a strategy game), well-animated, and generally look good. The game makes full use of a lot of the newest graphical goodies, with even the sand showing the effects of lighting.

On the other hand, there are some definite issues with the graphics. The game is a resource hog - I can run it with full detail, but it doesn't make it past 20 fps. Large numbers of units and hero mode slow the game down. I definitely reccommend a video card of a higher caliber than my own for playing this game. Besides the framerate issues, there are three areas in which the game could stand to be improved. First is the units' detail - as I said, your soldiers are very detailed for a strategy game. The problem is, this isn't just a strategy game, and when you get close to them in hero command mode, their edges and rough textures begin to show. The buildings could definitely have done with a few more polygons each - square pillars never have looked good. Finally, your opponents' buildings' footprints have a nasty habit of drawing over the fogmap; you can always know (to a degree) what he is doing by looking at the dirt patterns in the fog. Finally, ships' rowers tend to be stuck above the water for a while after the ship sinks, before inexplicably vanishing.

The cinematic graphics deserve a mention here too - they are inexplicably shown in low-resolution "game engine" cutscenes, but they are obviously not as good as they could be. Either they should have made professional rendered cutscenes, or they should have done them in real-time. To do things this way is a big mistake. Also, characters aren't really animated well in the cutscenes; they wave their arms around wildly or cross them three inches in front of their chests, removing most suspension of disbelief. However, these cutscenes can be skipped, and don't impact the game experience much.

OVERALL GRAPHICS SCORE: 8/10. The few problems aren't really enough to bring this game's beautiful visuals down.

Sound: RaF has an orchestral soundtrack full of trumpets and drums. It fits the period, and is generally of high quality. I have no complaints with it. Unit sounds are generally rather good too, with various "soldierish" SFX as your men move and fight. The one area where this game's sound disappoints is in the cutscenes, where the voice acting can and will get on your nerves. As the campaign is a large part of the game, this is very disappointing.

OVERALL SOUND SCORE: 7/10. Beautiful music and nice SFX marred by poor-quality voice acting.

Gameplay: Rise and Fall is an RTS; that is, you build a base, build an army, and conquer your enemies. It isn't nearly as complex as, say, Age of Empires 3; you have a few units (around 8 soldier types per civilization), a few buildings (2-4 unit production buildings, walls, towers, town centers, statues, and a "granary"), and a reasonable amount of technologies to improve your armies. (4 researchable levels per unit, plus about twenty "Advisors", which are really glorified technologies) The simplicity of the game may or may not deter you; I find it quite fun, although I wish there were more empire-building involved.

The average game of Rise and Fall starts out slowly; there's no way you're going to be in your enemy's base before 2:00, and you'll probably never see your opponent until you're past the ten-minute mark. Later in the game, things get pretty hectic, with heroes mixing it up with armies, sieges taking place regularly, and ships duking it out on international waters. You aren't likely to get bored here; the AIs pose a stiff challenge on level six (of ten), and hero command and RaF's unique ship to ship combat are quite fun. One thing I noticed here is the possibility for a game to "stalemate" when both players have hordes of units and neither can gain an advantage. The "Team Islands" map, in particular, is seceptible to this, with ships unable to make landfall on your opponent's well-stocked island.

There are three parts of RAF's gameplay that deserve mention here. First is Hero Command - the thing advertized in the press. By clicking on your hero's icon or pressing Q, you can zoom in to a third-person control mode where you run around with your hero, slashing at the enemy's forces. This can be quite fun, but it does become repetitious when your enemy has seemingly-unlimited hordes of units attacking. Your hero is controlled by the WASD keys, with left-button serving to launch a normal attack, Right-button releasing a built-up special attack, and middle-button (or space) blocking. Again, there isn't much variety here, but it doesn't really matter when you finally take out the last elephant attacking your gatehouse.

You can switch between weapons with the number keys; typically, 1 is your sword, 2 is your bow, and 3…5 are special weapons. With the bow, right-clicking zooms in sniper-style and left-clicking fires. I found the bow to be quite enjoyable at many times. You can control your troops in Hero Command by using F/G to command nearby troops to follow you, C to command them to charge, and various keys to invoke "special powers" to use against your enemies. These include Cleopatra's converting power, which makes nearby enemies come to your side, and Julius Caesar's Catapult Barrage power, which launches a devastating siege attack … if you have available catapults. The different heroes are quite varied, with different strengths and weaknesses catering to different playing styles.

The second part of the gameplay I want to address is ship-to-ship combat. Ship combat in RaF is a great improvement over other strategy games, mainly because ships aren't treated like footsoldiers anymore, but as powerful, mobile weapons, training bases, and transports. All ships can train footsoldiers, which they can keep onboard or send down to the shore to fight. In addition, Archers attack enemy ships, Swordsmen and Pikemen attack boarders (more on that in a moment), Drummers allow your ship to ram, and Sailors can grapple enemy ships and repair yours. Ships are slow, ponderous, and powerful, making them the "superweapons" of this game. After they are filled to a certain point, ships can no longer train new men; but this doesn't matter much, because you can beach them, set a gather point onshore, build a thousand archers, and put them back on the ship again. I don't really like this, but can't see what could be done about it. Ships can Ram other ships if lined up correctly, which essentially means that your ship charges through the water, splitting the other ship in two when it hits; they can Grapple other ships, which brings the two close together while footmen from both battle it out - the winner takes both ships; and the largest ships can be equipped with Catapults to bombard the shore.

Finally, the Outpost system deserves some mention. You normally train units in groups of three or more; with groups being at a set price - three soldiers costs as much as ten. Your groups become larger as you capture outposts - each outpost gives you an extra Command Point, and thus an extra soldier for your army each time you make a group. Outposts tend to be moderately garrisoned with AI soldiers; if you beat them, the outpost is yours. These become defining points for battles, with both sides trying desperately to control them and gain that crucial advantage. It doesn't change the game's formula much, but it does provide variety.

OVERALL GAMEPLAY SCORE: 9/10. Some fun new features and a solid strategy base make for an engaging game.

Replay Value: Rise and Fall comes with a relatively expansive set of gameplay options. You can play the two 10 to 15-mission campaigns, which feature a variety of missions from straight strategy missions to hero-command-only missions. Maps such as the Temple map of Cleopatra's campaign and the Navy map of Alexander's campaign were especially unique. The difficulty of missions seems to range inordinately from easy to very hard, with the final bosses being relatively easy, but the Coliseum mission early in Alexander's campaign being quite hard.

You can also play one of 24 skirmish maps, which are set patterns and scenery - no randomness, no variation. Despite this, they tend to be highly entertaining in general, and you don't really mind playing on a map you've seen before. There is also a multiplayer function with the same maps as singleplayer, and a very detailed map editor. I found that the game is easy to come back to after a long absence; the campaigns are one-time affairs, but the skirmishes are always fun.

OVERALL REPLAY VALUE SCORE: 8/10. The map editor, multiplayer, and fun scenarios make up for the limited campaigns.

Final Word: Rise and Fall was a victim of its own hype. When it didn't quite live up to its high claims, people were (perhaps rightly) disappointed, and rated it lower because of that. While RaF certainly isn't perfect, I don't believe it deserves the scores it was given.

OVERALL RATING: 8/10. (Great) A unique strategy game that I would recommend to fans of the strategy genre.

Supplemental: I was unable to play multiplayer due to problems with the service; however, many other people have been able to do so, so I did not rate the game down for this.