Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends Hands-On

Well we may not have gotten our Xbox 360 unit yet, but what we got from Microsoft in the mail a few days ago was a much more pleasant suprise. No, it's not a mate for the giant iguana we sent them, it's a very early preview build of one of the most anticipated RTS games of 2006, Big Huge Games' Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends.

She left me for a guy with a longer saber. I am jumping.

There's just something about big, fat guns...

Personally, I am a Big Huge fan of the original game (har har!!). Not so much in the sense that I know every detail about it that has ever been published (or kept away from the prying eyes of the public for that matter), but in the sense that I loved every bit of the core gameplay in the original. Rise of Nations had one of the most balanced and engaging (as well as challenging) single-player campaigns I have ever played, and I was absolutely delighted with how everything worked in the final product.

However, as good as the gameplay was in RoN, it still, somehow, felt like it lacked pacing. The conquering itself was great, but then after a while, you'd learn all the tricks and nuances and just tear away at the enemy one piece of his territory after another. That is why, as you may or may not know, Rise of Legends takes a completely different design direction. From the game whose setting relies heavily on a historical backdrop and facts about the weapons and units of each era, Big Huge Games has taken a completely different route (setting-wise) this time around. They have created a fantasy world of myths and legends, consisting of three separate campaigns, each with its unique visual style and background story. More information on the sequel in terms of the back-story, factions, and units can be found on the official site here.

For the short version, here's how the game's project lead Brian Reynolds explains the project:

"So. You may have noticed we didn't do a history game this time! RoN: Rise of Legends is in so many ways the spiritual successor to Rise of Nations, but the long and the short of it is we got excited about doing a fantasy game. Now clearly your traditional "orcs, elves, dwarves" sort of fantasy has been-shall we say-thoroughly covered in other games, and so the story which got us excited is one where the magic of fantasy meets a world of technology. So magic and technology collide, with cataclysmic results! As you take a peek at our first two unique nations you can begin to see the contrast: the industrial Vinci with their Leonardo da Vinci inspired machines and steampunk cities; and the desert Alim with their Arabian Nights theme-sandstorms, genies, and tall glass spires. "Cataclysmic" is also a useful word to describe what we want to do visually-we've redesigned our graphics engine from the ground up because we want to make a game that gets our players as excited about our graphics as they have always been about our gameplay. The gameplay themes which players loved in RoN will be back in expanded form for RoN: Rise of Legends-national borders, cities, color-coded tech tracks, massive armies, and of course the open-ended strategic decisions of our "Conquer the World" engine. There will also be many new gameplay features that weren't seen in Rise of Nations. So come take a look at what we've been up to, and keep checking back as we reveal additional details about where we want to take real time strategy gaming next!"

For this particular article, however, I want to focus solely on my gameplay experience. Granted though, I haven't had a chance to spend too much time with the game, and technically the code is still very rough around the edges (that's why we weren't allowed to take in-game screenshots, although the game looks very much like the shots provided to us by MS). But the most important thing is that my (highly positive) gut instinct about Rise of Legends (after seeing it at the E3) is still there. This is a diamond in the rough, which is sure to be shaped and polished before it hits the shelves. Xbox 360 gamers can look on in envy as we PC nuts get one of the best RTS games of the year. I told both my friends and colleagues back in May that this is the one strategy to look out for, and judging from the few missions that I have played, Rise of Legends has so far proven me right.

In the couple of missions I played, I took control of Giacomo and the industrial Vinci with their Leonardo da Vinci technology and steampunk cities. The fantasy backdrop felt completely new to me, which was quite refreshing. Of course, the full game will have a story in place, so it was no surprise that I wasn't able to understand what's going on in this small sample of the full campaign. Nonetheless, I loved the visual uniqueness of the units as well as the fact that I didn't really have a clue as to which unit is good at what. It took me several tries before I finally got the hang of things and was on my way to taking over a key bridge on the map. But that's fine because I enjoy a challenge. As you may have noticed from the screenshots, the way that the base building is handled in Rise of Legends is somewhat different from the way things were done in the previous game and in RTS games in general. The tech tree and the building menu are divided into three key categories: Build, Research, and Prototype Factory. There are buildings that you build separately, like the barracks, defensive towers, and so on, but the city itself (and this is the novel part) consists of districts. In order to get all the major improvements, you'll have to build the military district, merchant district, industrial district and so on. Unlocking certain prototypes like the Juggernaut will require several districts of a certain type (industrial districts in this case). The city will develop separately from the "support buildings" but looking at the big picture; you'll have to take care of both of these aspects of base building if you are to be successful and developed enough to crush your enemies. As far as the resources go, there are only two to worry about: Timonium (which you mine) and Wealth (represented in gold coins).