What review of Sacrifice would be complete without a mention of the graphics? It's one of those rare titles that looks so good that you'll probably end up wanting to “just happen to be playing it” when your friends pop round so you can show off what your PC is really capable of. If ever there were a game that will sell a large number of copies just because the screenshots on the box are so lovely, this is it. For the first few minutes of play you'll just want to run around the landscapes taking in their expansive glory until you realise that to get access to the really nice high level spells you'll have to actually play the game. When you become a high level wizard you can cast even more impressive spells than the simple ones you start the game with, and these include a volcano, tornado, and if you decide to stick with the James you'll even get to cast a spell that simply unplugs a huge chunk of earth and sends it plummeting downwards along with any creatures who happened to be standing on it. Even the most powerful of spells will not be sufficient to win battle for you entirely though. You'll need an army of creatures to do that.
Long before some Apple marketing type came up with the slogan “Think Different,” Shiny was doing just that, and judging by the often utterly insane creature designs in Sacrifice they don't intend to stop any time soon either. What do you picture when you think of a Phoenix? A big, flaming, majestic bird. Not Shiny. Their Phoenix has a series of huge, single feathers along each side that slowly flap to keep it afloat and rather than breathing fire it shoots a strange, energy and life sapping beam. Whatever Shiny is on, I want some, and if they just naturally make such strange games, I'm worried. Some of the gods share pretty similar units, particularly when you look at the lower end creatures, but special abilities that let some teleport, some spy on enemy encampments or even flee a battle they're losing at great pace help to differentiate them a little, and when you get to the powerful high end creatures they tend to be quite different to one another indeed.
Crucial to winning Sacrifice is picking the right creature of yours to attack which enemy creature. It works on a kind of stone, paper, scissors principle – combat troops are best against missile troops, flyers will merrily decimate combat troops without fear of retaliation and missile troops are best at taking out often weak flyers. Once you learn this strategy it isn't always easy to use though. While it's a nice idea to control a a wizard running around the battle field from a third person perspective rather than an omnipresent general, it can often be difficult to select the right troops let alone successfully command them to attack an enemy unit that's often moving or obscured by a number of your creatures. It didn't stop me from completing mission after mission but the control system did prove an occasional pain in the butt. Being able to assign hotkeys on the fly did help though and it's a neat feature that I hope other RTS titles include in the future. To assign hotkeys you just hover over the spell button, press CTRL+SHIFT+ any letter key and, voila, instant hotkey.
