SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars

• Lengthy single-player campaigns
  
• Interesting story
  
• Beautiful graphics and audio make for a good atmosphere
  
• Lots of replay value

SUMMARY:
Background
When I opened up the packaging of my new graphics card and found a copy of the SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars, I thought to myself "Ooo, a free game. This might keep me amused for a few weeks." As it turned out, it kept me hooked relentlessly for several months, and it still has a lot of the replay value left. I was amazed on many levels by the depths the developers have gone to to produce such a fantastic game, and to get it for free was a real bonus. I'd never heard of the SpellForce series before now, but I will be keeping a close eye on this title for future releases.


Story
The storyline for Shadow Wars is immersive and well written; a story told through the actions of your avatar while playing the game and a back-story told through passages of text on the loading screens between missions. The closer towards the end of the game you get, the more pieces of the puzzle start to fall into place before you finally realise the extent of your actions and must save the world from destruction.

Your avatar is a Shaikan; a human whose blood has been mixed with that of a dragon, a tradition that has continued for centuries. The dragon's blood provides you and your family and friends with new-found abilities and strengths, even allowing you to resurrect others by donating some of your blood. But there is a dark secret flowing through your blood also; the soul of your great ancestor; a feared alchemist named Malacay. Due to the history behind this blood-pact, the Shaikan are shunned by just about everyone else in the world of Eo. Shaikan translates to 'Godless' from the old language of the Dark Elves, and it's this mistrust that forces the Shaikan to live between the opposing nations of light and dark.

Dark sorcerer Nazshar has formed a pact between the Norcaine (the Dark Elves) and the Shadows. Civil war breaks out between the forces of Nazshar and those opposing the pact, headed by a Dark Elf General Craig Un'Shallach. Craig's forces are severely outnumbered and outmatched by Nazshar and his sorceress wife Sorvina, so he commands his daughter, Nightsong (see box art), to deliver a warning to the people of the light about the coming darkness.

As the game progresses you'll get an idea of what it's like to be mistrusted by everyone; allies turn to enemies at a moment's notice, while your main objective and enemy shifts throughout the game. Until you've completed the entire game and know the full story, you won't be satisfied.


Gameplay
Shadow Wars does well to mix the RPG and RTS genres together in a cocktail I'd happily drink any day of the week. You've got the typical experience system, levelling up your character and gaining new abilities and items to wear, while also taking command of an army to combat an opposing threat. Base-building plays an important part in many missions, requiring you to build up production structures, defence towers and special buildings. Many of these buildings also have 'upgrades' which unlock new units or abilities. For example, defence towers can be upgraded three times (one specialty from each of three factions in either the Realm, the Clans or the Pact) to improve the attack power of the tower, increase its hitpoints, weaken enemies nearly, heal nearby units and such. The headquarters building is the hub, where you can purchase workers who will collect the resources required; stone, silver and Lenya. Also on the RTS side of the coin is micromanagement of your units. Selecting everyone and charging in will often result in failure, so you need to use the group function and attack wisely; keep stronger melee units at the front while weaker range units (which are usually faster) stay near the back.

On the RPG side, you start with a group of three units (eventually growing to six) who you can train to become a mage (either elemental, mystic, light and dark), a strong / defensive / fast warrior, or a ranger and give them select abilities depending on your style of play. For example, the elemental mage has freezing and burning spells, while the dark mage uses painful attacks which cause a lot of damage instantly. The light mage has some very useful (almost vital) healing spells, while the warriors gain abilities to boost their attack and defence and that of any units nearby.

Bor (your brother) will automatically train as a strong warrior, while Lya (your sister) will naturally choose a light magic path. You can take over their development however, and train them in whichever areas you prefer. You will always be in control of your avatars development however, and whenever you gain a level it's up to you to decide which new abilities to gain. Over the course of the game, your avatar will gain more levels than your companions, and is the only character able to reach the highest tier of abilities if you focus on one area. There are many different paths to take along the ability tree, each resulting in a unique end-point; you could end up as wielding massive two-handed swords or axes, plating yourself up with strong armour, dual-wielding light weapons for faster attacks or going for bows / crossbows and becoming a ranger. As explained above, there are four quite different pools of magic to dip into; the later spells of course being the most impressive.

The main story is fairly linear and you don't get a lot of leniency when it comes to your most important quest, but along the way there are many side quests you can partake in which do offer you several outcomes. The various outcomes may result in acquiring different items or combating different enemies, or just make you feel like you're playing a nice/nasty character, but most are satisfying in the end. Quests vary from the usual go here, collect this and give it to them, to some destroying a crypt spewing forth undead creatures, to sending out the dieing wishes of a greedy family as they submit themselves to a Fire God. The exploration (and often combat) aspects of these quests makes it so they're never dull or laborious, while the main storyline offers many plot twists to keep you interested. There are also various puzzles that crop up from time to time, more frequently in the latter levels, which require a bit of thinking, but most are quite intuitive.

A wonderful addition to aid to lengthy quests across different areas are the Journey Stones; dragon statues that, once lit by you passing nearby, allow you to teleport back to them at any time, even across different missions. I can imagine it would be hellish remembering which areas had portals to which other areas and having to walk your way back, so this is a definite plus.


Scenery and Landscape
Shadow Wars features some pretty amazing graphics which really help pull you into the SpellForce world. From sweeping fields and woodland, to vast cities, into underground mines, through gigantic fortresses and crystal forests; almost every island territory is a different experience and really sets the scene for an epic adventure. And not only are these landscapes beautiful; they're pretty vast too! Luckily, there is a mini-map of the whole region, which allows you to click where you want to go and have the camera follow a unit through the area, therefore you can't really get lost. These wide-open areas allow you to follow your own path to complete a quest, and provide immense battlefields between two opposing armies. You can get right into the action with the third-person camera angle and feel a part of the fight, or pan outwards and upwards to see the entire battle and micromanage your troops effectively.


Audio
Complimenting the visuals above like butter with bread, the audio in Shadow Wars is splendid. Each area has its own music which reflects the nature of the situation. Soothing woodwind instruments can be heard in the forests and valleys, eerie music plays in the swamps and desecrated cities and structures, while thunderous drums storm out across a battlefield as your weapons clang against the enemies armour and magic spells tear through the air.

What's also nice in the audio department is that every piece of dialogue has a voice-over to go with it. Even the small side-quests and random civilians that you can talk to all have speech, which is a real plus-point and keeps you in the game world so you're not having to read long passages of text in conversations (the option is there if you want, of course).


Replayability / Gaming Modes
The single-player campaign is pretty vast and kept me engrossed for a long time. Even after you've finished the main campaign, you may want to play it through again and choose to train as a dark mage, elemental mage, ranger or warrior depending on what you chose the first time. On my first run through I went with a strong warrior which seemed the natural thing to do, but next I went for a dark mage, which turned up to be a lot more fun! You may also choose to follow different paths in the many side-quests or perform different tasks along the main storyline. For example, at one stage you have to either kill a massive spider or collect sacrifices for it in order to proceed; initially I just slaughtered the thing, but second time around I went for the sacrifice option (which turned out to be somewhat harder).

There is also the 'Free' campaign mode, which chronologically takes place after the main campaign and where your avatar is now a new, inexperienced Shaikan off to complete missions on his own. You talk to various people in the new Shaikan stronghold, get given a mission and off you go through a single portal straight to the new world. As you level up (gaining abilities as in the main campaign), you'll find a group of companions wanting to join you; either already skilled up or giving you a blank character with a load of abilities to hand out right there and then (i.e. full customisation). Combined with the main campaign, this is a hell of a lot of gaming fun to get through.

There's also a skirmish mode which, like any other RTS skirmish, is having a number of headquarter buildings on the map and you have to build up your base and army while defending yourself and eventually overrun the enemy. You get to choose from a group of heroes with pre-defined abilities and spells, so you can't send in your own customised hero. I didn't find this nearly as interesting as the single-player areas, so if you're keen on your multiplayer RTS games then this probably isn't a game to go for. But the single-player campaigns more than make up for this.


Conclusion
SpellForce 2: Shadows Wars is a truly great game packed with hours of enjoyment. It's not the best RPG in the world, nor the best RTS in the world, but it does a damn good job of mixing the two together and producing an enjoyable gaming experience. With hours upon hours of single-player gameplay to get through, pretty amazing graphics and a wonderful storyline, I highly recommend this to any RPG and RTS fans out there.