With the amount of publicity Halo Wars received recently you would be forgiven for thinking that it was the only RTS being released this year, however SEGA are also entering the market with their game Stormrise, which has been developed by Creative Assembly who are the brains behind such games as Empire Total Wars and Medieval II. 

 

The game takes place after what is only known as The Event, basically humans saw that the world was falling to the grips of climate change, so they decided to create a force-field to protect the earth, at first this was hailed a success but then The Event happened and suddenly without warning destructive storms destroyed everything in their path on a global scale. The only survivors of the devastation where the humans known as the Echelon, who where in cryogenic hibernation deep beneath the surface and The Sai who are creatures that evolved from humans over the years and managed to survive on the earths harsh surface.

 

 

Once the introductions are out of the way, your character takes control of his mech suit and you are thrown into the action. The suit acts as your control point, allowing you to use the innovative Whip Select ability to jump to different units and control them. This ability is assigned to the right thumb stick and works extremely well, to use it you simply navigate the selection beam over the unit you wish to command then release the stick, this will then give you complete control over that unit. Once you are comfortable with the controls you can also use the more advanced Quick Whip, which allows you to flick the right stick in the general direction of the unit you wish to control and the game will select the nearest unit in that direction.

 

When a unit is in the distance you can move to them by hovering the cursor over that unit and pressing the appropriate action button, although this can be a bit of a task, similarly if two units are close together things can become quite fiddly, especially when you are in the middle of the action.

 

The game also allows you to group units together, to do this you select one unit and then hold down the L1 button and press X to place all of the other units in the vicinity in the same group. Placing the units together unfortunately doesn’t take away from the fact that moving your units is a more time consuming process than it should be, it all just feels a bit much really and it’s a pity that there is not a more simplified way of doing this really.

 

To create the unit’s you will need take on the enemy, it is essential to take over the warp gates that are spread through the levels, this is where the real RTS element comes in, allowing you to produce units and equipment. You are also encouraged to make use of the natural resources (warp energy) spread throughout the battlefield, once you have identified these areas you must then place a control node to harvest this energy. The control nodes can be protected from hostiles by selecting the option to build a turret and/or shield, this will allow you time to get some units back should they not be in the vicinity of the node. Finally it is also possible to upgrade the nodes by adding a refinery, allowing you to harvest more energy and therefore gain more resources to build your army. 

 

Should any of your units or nodes be in danger you are soon warned thanks to the games neat voiceovers, this will allow you to whip to the closest unit and get them to help out in order to deal with the threat.

 

The enemies themselves are certainly varied, with basic units such as the Rangers, Warriors and Spectres providing the bulk of opposition and the more formidable Matriarch and Rift Worms providing you with a bit of a tougher fight. Although there are only eight types of enemy, you will probably not notice this much during the action as it can get very intense at times.

 

 

Graphically the game is quite dark in places, but then the world has been devastated, so perhaps this is to be expected. Although dark there is certainly plenty of beautifully crafted animations, the Sai really do look the business and the environments are wonderfully detailed and varied. The cut-scenes are also pretty impressive and help explain what in essence, is quite a complicated story.

 

Stormrise also comes packed with a multiplayer option, allowing you to take your offline skills online against human opponents. Strategy obviously becomes much more important online, cutting off their nodes in order to drain their supply does become an almost essential tactic and will take you part of the way to victory as winning in multiplayer requires you to either destroy all of your opponents forces or capture all of the nodes.

 

As an RTS Stormrise is certainly different, it relies on a third person view to take you to the action, but thanks to the Whip Select is still very much an RTS in the way it plays. The controls can be frustrating and difficult to use at times, which is probably why RTS novices would be better sticking to a simpler game, though for veterans to the RTS scene looking for something different, this might just be what you are looking for.