The Calm Before The Storm! Stormrise Review
Developed by Creative Assembly and published by Sega proves there most certainly is calm before any storm with this new title.
Stormrise is the new instalment from Sega which delivers a good real-time strategy experience in a very immersive post apocalyptic world. The beginning shows the world and a new phenomenal powers that help the worlds environment but soon the power gets out of hand and turns in to a apocalyptic disaster which sees you going in to a self induced hibernation in order to secure people for the future for when the effects of the fall out are over, but only to awaken to a battle zone of two half’s and your guy you play as isn’t in for a easy time.
There’s two sides in the new world, there’s the Echelon and the Sai, you play as the Echelon a group trying to safeguard the future with there high tech knowledge and battle droids and heavy weaponry both in air and on land. The Sai is a group who have adapted to the new ways of the world and the harsh barren waste lands and they are struggling for survival so they will do what it takes to get ahead and to better them selves. Each side both have some powerful people and weaponry including land vehicles and air born units to maximize the full power of your army and to inflict as much damage as you can to the opposing side.
Straight from the intro movie the graphics grab your attention, graphics which run in full HD beauty really captivates you and gives you the most pleasurable and enjoyable experience of this title and adds to the all important detail of the units and gives the desolate waste lands that little bit extra feel to it which is always appreciated in games that you spend a lot of time surrounded by vast areas of destruction and buildings that you constantly will be looking at and watching for the on coming enemy force. The attention to detail both in the surrounding areas and to the people battling in open spaces and in derelict and partially destroyed buildings is pretty impressive , the lighting effects are really nicely done which adds to the atmosphere and the feel of the whole game which makes for a pretty impressive and very immersive game, with its big maps to battle across as well there's lots to see.
The game play is seamless and runs real well for the type of game that it is unlike some other titles that are on the market of the same genre which move sluggish and have sides of that clash with its self, but Stormrise takes all the sluggish and clashing parts and chucks them away to give you a enjoyable experience for the real-time strategy games genre. Instead of the standard real-time strategy games you don’t sit and control you troops by looking down on to the battle and have to click for them to move here and there, instead you are thrown in to the front line of the battle so your always 100% fully involved in all the fire fights and you always have the sense and feeling of being involved in everything instead of just being sat on the side lines watching.
There are different game modes which is a standard and a must for games these days which include single player which sees you playing through the story line in a fight between you and the Sai forces, and there’s the multiplayer which you can either play a skirmish which you can have you against bots or you can have people join in with you on a system link if your playing on a console version of this game, where you get to also choose the maps you play or just let he computer choose for you. Or you can play online which is good but hard when fighting against people that are more skilled in knowing the layout of the different maps but it’s still enjoyable.
Sega has revolutionised the controls of real-time strategy’s with there new and very innovative whip select feature which allows you to select various units on your team pretty quickly with very little effort at all which saves you time and makes it so much easier to getting the vital unit instead of having to scroll down the screen and select the unit then get back to where the battle is, the whip select is a truly superb feature and works in sync with the basic controls of the game which are simple to use.
Overall Stormrise is a very strategic real-time strategy game where you need to out smart the opposing force by taking to all levels of ground like on top of buildings which gives you the advantage on enemy units that are below you, flanking them to get the upper hand and crossing over your lines of fire from two of your squads will always catch them off guard as well and help no end. But over all no much how strategy based Stormrise is it’s a enjoyable game and is one where you could complete a mission one way one day then a complete different way the next day, it’s a game that you don’t have to do what they suggest it’s a game that you do what you need to do to win.
Review By: Richard Sweeting
