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"[GAME] Sacrifice"

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Sun 12/08/12 at 21:24
Regular
Posts: 261
I remember reading a preview for Sacrifice in a gaming magazine back in 2000 and decided to ask for it on my Birthday. I was in Tenerife at the time, so I had to wait until I returned home before I could play it. I did spend some time reading the manual and the back of the box and imagined how the game would actually play from this. I was hyped for this game, which was developed by Shiny Entertainment. At the time I didn’t know who Shiny Entertainment was but I eventually found that I did play their Earthworm Jim games on the Sega Megadrive.

The game features both a single player story mode and Multiplayer modes which by default work under the same rules.

In Sacrifice you are a Wizard who has different spells and summons dependant on which God you worship. At the start of a game or a story mission, you have an Altar which is your link to the physical world. When a Wizard dies they will eventually be revived at the Altar, so the Altar must be “Desecrated” to end the game. A desecration ritual starts when you sacrifice one of your own creatures at an enemy Altar and if the enemy wizard dies while this ritual is taking place, then the Altar is destroyed and the Wizard is banished.

Because of the existence of your Altar, your Wizard regenerates mana at a slow rate. You will see spots near your altar and across the map where you can build either Shrine or Manalith structures. At the start of the game you will first create Manaliths near your Altar. These give you increased mana regen when you stand next to them. To gain regen out of these structures from a distance, you summon the floppy eared unfortunately named creatures known as “Manahoars”. These creatures are defenceless so you usually have them following behind you and the amount of mana they give per one summoned has diminishing returns so each one summoned provides less regen than the last so it is typical to have 3 or 4 of them. In each game you start with a certain number of souls, which are your currency for unit summoning.

Sacrifice is a first person action RTS game which has a fair amount of depth to it. You need to be aware of the unit types that your enemy summons as there is a combat triangle between Air, Ranged and Melee units. You will also need to be aware of the formations that units can form e.g. ordering ranged units to stand in a semi-circle behind you so that melee units take longer to reach them or ordering them in to stand in a skirmish formation so that each unit has a clear shot at a target.

When one of your creatures dies, it will leave behind a blue soul. When one of your enemy creatures dies, they leave behind red souls. Blue souls can be picked up immediately by walking over them, whereas red souls have to be converted to your side. This is done by summoning “Sac Doctors” who run up to the enemy body, sucks the soul into a giant needle and then carries it to your Altar to be purified for your use. However, this takes a long time and if the doctor is attacked by the enemy then the soul is dropped ready for the enemy wizard to pick it up again. If you have a Shrine build nearby a Sac Doctor they won’t have to walk back to your Altar which helps in securing your enemies souls. Souls are finite in number, so you can reach a point where you have all the creatures and your enemy has none. It also means that turning a losing game around is very difficult to do.

As well as summoning creatures, your wizard will also have a variety of spells to use to aid you in combat as well. Every wizard has the ability to heal or increase the movement speed of themselves and other creatures and the speed up spell can also increase the speed of converting souls with a Sac Doctor. Although there are differences in the spells of each god, especially in appearance, there are spell types that most of them offer: a single target nuke, a shield, a wall, a stun, a chain spell, a blue soul fetching spell, an AoE spell, a rain spell and an Ultimate ability.

You can also chain creatures to structures to turn them into guardians, which makes them stronger. You should do this to protect the Manaliths near your Altar and for one on the frontline, but you shouldn’t overdo this as you won’t have any creatures to fight in the frontlines with you. The change is permanent so you have to kill your own creatures and reclaim their souls if you have too many guardians.

There are five gods in Sacrifice: Persephone, the Goddess of Life; James, the God of Earth; Stratos, the God of Air; Pyro, the God of Fire and Charnel, the God of Death.

In Story Mode you start off as Eldred, who meets with a blind Seer known as Mithras in a war torn world. Eldred tells Mithras of his past and how the world has come to be what it is. Eldred was a Tyrannical ruler of the world of Jehra, but he became overwhelmed with those who were rebelling against him. He decides to summon a Demon known as Marduk to destroy the rebels, but the Demon couldn’t be controlled and went on to destroy Jehra. Eldred managed to flee to a new world which was split up into 5 realms with each god ruling over it, each with their own agendas. Mithras meets with the Gods and prophesizes that one of the Gods will betray the others, which increases tensions between them. As the Gods wish for more Wizards to fight for them, Eldred is in demand.

You start of in the Ethereal Realm where the five Gods are and each of them bickers between each other as to which of them you should join. Each God offers you 10 missions to complete but you can only do 10 in a single playthrough e.g. If you do Persephone’s mission number 1 then you can’t do mission number 1 with the other Gods and you are moved on to mission 2. Completing a mission from one of the Gods gives you two spells from that god, one creature summon and an additional attack/defence spell. If you are aware of the spells that each god offers before you play the campaign, you can sort of create your own spell book and list of creatures. This can create a jarring contrast as you heal your allies with Persephone’s rainbows while exploding an enemy’s intestine with Charnel’s magic.

In multiplayer you usually pick your God from a drop down list, but you can also import your Campaign wizard into multiplayer so you can have a mixed spell book if you wish.

The voice acting of the Gods and the characters are very good and has a few famous names with Tim Curry as Stratos and Brad Garrett as James. James, the Earth God is a worm which can be seen as a reference to Shiny’s Earthworm Jim series. The graphics do look dated by today’s standards but back in 2000 it was top of the range and it was the first commercial video game that processed lighting, clipping and transform instructions.

After the campaign, I spent many hours fighting against the AI in Multiplayer and enjoyed unleashing ultimate abilities such as volcanoes and earthquakes which burn and crack the landscape or unleashing a tornado and watch as the creatures go swirling around in the air or jump in yourself. The visual effects of the spells were very impressive back then and they still look fairly decent now. The campaign has 50 unique missions so that you can have a different experience when playing it five times over.

The negatives of Sacrifice are that although you can zoom out, you can’t get a whole clear view of the battlefield which isn’t great for a strategy game. You have an owl-like imp companion called Zyzyx who serves as a guide and commentator but there are occasions where repeat lines can get a tad annoying e.g. you gather an army for a big clash and every time a unit dies you hear “Your creatures are dying” and you may have tens of units so it is repeated constantly. Having to manage separate groups of ranged, melee and air units at once and remembering keyboard shortcuts can seem overwhelming.

That said, this game only feels slightly daunting in combat but that is all there is to think about as you only have two structures to build so there is no base building at all, which makes the game feel simplistic compared to other RTS games.

I feel that this game didn’t deserve such poor sales, especially considering that most of the development was done by four people and they managed to come up with something original. If you are having an itch to play an RTS God game without base building then you could give this a try on Steam.

8/10
There have been no replies to this thread yet.
Sun 12/08/12 at 21:24
Regular
Posts: 261
I remember reading a preview for Sacrifice in a gaming magazine back in 2000 and decided to ask for it on my Birthday. I was in Tenerife at the time, so I had to wait until I returned home before I could play it. I did spend some time reading the manual and the back of the box and imagined how the game would actually play from this. I was hyped for this game, which was developed by Shiny Entertainment. At the time I didn’t know who Shiny Entertainment was but I eventually found that I did play their Earthworm Jim games on the Sega Megadrive.

The game features both a single player story mode and Multiplayer modes which by default work under the same rules.

In Sacrifice you are a Wizard who has different spells and summons dependant on which God you worship. At the start of a game or a story mission, you have an Altar which is your link to the physical world. When a Wizard dies they will eventually be revived at the Altar, so the Altar must be “Desecrated” to end the game. A desecration ritual starts when you sacrifice one of your own creatures at an enemy Altar and if the enemy wizard dies while this ritual is taking place, then the Altar is destroyed and the Wizard is banished.

Because of the existence of your Altar, your Wizard regenerates mana at a slow rate. You will see spots near your altar and across the map where you can build either Shrine or Manalith structures. At the start of the game you will first create Manaliths near your Altar. These give you increased mana regen when you stand next to them. To gain regen out of these structures from a distance, you summon the floppy eared unfortunately named creatures known as “Manahoars”. These creatures are defenceless so you usually have them following behind you and the amount of mana they give per one summoned has diminishing returns so each one summoned provides less regen than the last so it is typical to have 3 or 4 of them. In each game you start with a certain number of souls, which are your currency for unit summoning.

Sacrifice is a first person action RTS game which has a fair amount of depth to it. You need to be aware of the unit types that your enemy summons as there is a combat triangle between Air, Ranged and Melee units. You will also need to be aware of the formations that units can form e.g. ordering ranged units to stand in a semi-circle behind you so that melee units take longer to reach them or ordering them in to stand in a skirmish formation so that each unit has a clear shot at a target.

When one of your creatures dies, it will leave behind a blue soul. When one of your enemy creatures dies, they leave behind red souls. Blue souls can be picked up immediately by walking over them, whereas red souls have to be converted to your side. This is done by summoning “Sac Doctors” who run up to the enemy body, sucks the soul into a giant needle and then carries it to your Altar to be purified for your use. However, this takes a long time and if the doctor is attacked by the enemy then the soul is dropped ready for the enemy wizard to pick it up again. If you have a Shrine build nearby a Sac Doctor they won’t have to walk back to your Altar which helps in securing your enemies souls. Souls are finite in number, so you can reach a point where you have all the creatures and your enemy has none. It also means that turning a losing game around is very difficult to do.

As well as summoning creatures, your wizard will also have a variety of spells to use to aid you in combat as well. Every wizard has the ability to heal or increase the movement speed of themselves and other creatures and the speed up spell can also increase the speed of converting souls with a Sac Doctor. Although there are differences in the spells of each god, especially in appearance, there are spell types that most of them offer: a single target nuke, a shield, a wall, a stun, a chain spell, a blue soul fetching spell, an AoE spell, a rain spell and an Ultimate ability.

You can also chain creatures to structures to turn them into guardians, which makes them stronger. You should do this to protect the Manaliths near your Altar and for one on the frontline, but you shouldn’t overdo this as you won’t have any creatures to fight in the frontlines with you. The change is permanent so you have to kill your own creatures and reclaim their souls if you have too many guardians.

There are five gods in Sacrifice: Persephone, the Goddess of Life; James, the God of Earth; Stratos, the God of Air; Pyro, the God of Fire and Charnel, the God of Death.

In Story Mode you start off as Eldred, who meets with a blind Seer known as Mithras in a war torn world. Eldred tells Mithras of his past and how the world has come to be what it is. Eldred was a Tyrannical ruler of the world of Jehra, but he became overwhelmed with those who were rebelling against him. He decides to summon a Demon known as Marduk to destroy the rebels, but the Demon couldn’t be controlled and went on to destroy Jehra. Eldred managed to flee to a new world which was split up into 5 realms with each god ruling over it, each with their own agendas. Mithras meets with the Gods and prophesizes that one of the Gods will betray the others, which increases tensions between them. As the Gods wish for more Wizards to fight for them, Eldred is in demand.

You start of in the Ethereal Realm where the five Gods are and each of them bickers between each other as to which of them you should join. Each God offers you 10 missions to complete but you can only do 10 in a single playthrough e.g. If you do Persephone’s mission number 1 then you can’t do mission number 1 with the other Gods and you are moved on to mission 2. Completing a mission from one of the Gods gives you two spells from that god, one creature summon and an additional attack/defence spell. If you are aware of the spells that each god offers before you play the campaign, you can sort of create your own spell book and list of creatures. This can create a jarring contrast as you heal your allies with Persephone’s rainbows while exploding an enemy’s intestine with Charnel’s magic.

In multiplayer you usually pick your God from a drop down list, but you can also import your Campaign wizard into multiplayer so you can have a mixed spell book if you wish.

The voice acting of the Gods and the characters are very good and has a few famous names with Tim Curry as Stratos and Brad Garrett as James. James, the Earth God is a worm which can be seen as a reference to Shiny’s Earthworm Jim series. The graphics do look dated by today’s standards but back in 2000 it was top of the range and it was the first commercial video game that processed lighting, clipping and transform instructions.

After the campaign, I spent many hours fighting against the AI in Multiplayer and enjoyed unleashing ultimate abilities such as volcanoes and earthquakes which burn and crack the landscape or unleashing a tornado and watch as the creatures go swirling around in the air or jump in yourself. The visual effects of the spells were very impressive back then and they still look fairly decent now. The campaign has 50 unique missions so that you can have a different experience when playing it five times over.

The negatives of Sacrifice are that although you can zoom out, you can’t get a whole clear view of the battlefield which isn’t great for a strategy game. You have an owl-like imp companion called Zyzyx who serves as a guide and commentator but there are occasions where repeat lines can get a tad annoying e.g. you gather an army for a big clash and every time a unit dies you hear “Your creatures are dying” and you may have tens of units so it is repeated constantly. Having to manage separate groups of ranged, melee and air units at once and remembering keyboard shortcuts can seem overwhelming.

That said, this game only feels slightly daunting in combat but that is all there is to think about as you only have two structures to build so there is no base building at all, which makes the game feel simplistic compared to other RTS games.

I feel that this game didn’t deserve such poor sales, especially considering that most of the development was done by four people and they managed to come up with something original. If you are having an itch to play an RTS God game without base building then you could give this a try on Steam.

8/10

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