Battle Realms (PC)

Long ago the demonic beings known as The Horde were bearing down on the remnants of the Dragon Clan. Their leader, Tarrant the elder, used the ancient artifact known as the Serpent’s Orb to drive back The Horde and, in doing so, broke the world. The remnants of his people renounced their old clan and renamed themselves The Serpent after the orb and to foster a new way of thinking for their new world. A path of ambition, industry, and brutal feudalism.

Three generations have passed since the establishment of the Serpent Clan and the clan has smashed and shattered by their Lotus Clan advisers and Wolf Clan slaves. The last remaining heir of Tarrant’s line, Kenji, must retake the continent from the two remaining clans. Will you reestablish the well oiled machine and strict caste system of the Serpent clan or will you embrace the old traditions of the Dragon Clan and try to restore the broken planet?

History

Battle Realms was the first game released by Liquid Entertainment. It was held in very high regard at the time for being a real-time strategy game in full 3D. It was also praised for its East-Asian aesthetic and innovative unit development system — instead of spontaneously generating units at buildings units train at those buildings. Despite its critical acclaim it wasn’t well marketed and sales suffered. A stand-alone expansion pack was released known as Winter of the Wolf to middling reviews.

I guess the fan base was not interested in barbarians of the ginger variety.

Battle Realms was released on November 7th, 2001. It’s competition was Stronghold (PC), Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (PS2), and Return to Castle Wolfenstein (PC)

Experiences

Patching can make or break a game. And this game, before the patch, was nearly a broken mess. When I played it as a kid I didn’t realize what was wrong with it — I mean, I thought Bubsy was a good game when I was a kid so… It’s plain to see in the pre-patch version that the characters either do too much damage or don’t have enough health and would generally die before I even had a chance to use their abilities. The low health also made the story campaign more difficult as the death of a plot relevant character forces you to lose the mission. Checking over the notes some of the abilities didn’t even work in the game before the update. Liquid entertainment released a series of patches known as the Battlepacks and these did a great job at fixing the broken parts of the game. Right on, Liquid.

Gameplay

Battle Realms is a real-time strategy game with internet multiplayer, skirmishes vs the AI, and two story campaigns. There are four different clans you can play as who all have different strengths, weakness, abilities, and themes. The story campaign limits your clan selection and training abilities at first but unlocks to the full tech tree by the end. The basic goal of a skirmish or campaign map is to create an army that balances its strength and weaknesses and counters the composition of your opponents army.

Unlike other RTS games you have peasants who can build peasant huts which produce more peasants who can train at military buildings. Those units can train at other buildings to become generally better or more specialized. These unit can acquire battle gear at select clan building to further specialize their abilities — although not all battle gear is created equal. Fighting enemies generates the clans moral element, yin or yang, which can be spent on clan-wide upgrades at training buildings.

You can also tame and employ horses which move faster than most units and can trample foes.

The Gush

It’s something very small but I love how gold is not a resource in this game. Units are loyal to the clan, by choice or by fear, and are trained in rice and water instead of gold or something else.

The soundtrack is steeped in recurring musical themes between the different clans. I began to associate metallic chimes with the Serpent clan and whereas I began to associate the Wolf clan with chanting and exuberant shouts. To top it all off each song has a peace-time mix and a battle mix, switching between them as the battle rages or dies down.

Almost every unit has a secret passive ability linked to their character. Bandits, for instance, can scavenge rice and water off of enemy corpses and the powder keg sumo can spread salt across his comrades and reduce the amount of magical damage they take. The abilities vary in power and impact but I feel like they all give each unit flavor such as Shinja’s Ye of little Faith ability which lowers magic damage he takes — and suits his pragmatic and cynical disposition. Unfortunately these abilities were only hinted at in the manuals and some do not make themselves readily apparent in the game.

And if you’re facing the dark magicks of the Lotus Clan then you’d best have magical protection

The animation in this game is quality stuff. When units are unselected they generally idle around and check their equipment and some even goof off. When you click them however they assume a battle-ready stance and are totally ready for your orders. This sort of attention to detail gives them all character.

The battles in this game are patently absurd. You’ll see a ginger Schwarzenegger wanna-be swing a giant wooden mallet against the armor of a professional samurai. It’s absolutely insane and I love it.

The Kvetch

I really dig the art style and graphic styles, don’t get me wrong, but some of the models were made poorly. Ballistamen for instance don’t have heads. They just sort of have faces sticking off their necks. And the proportions of some models are cartoonish at best.

Some of the campaign maps are broken and there are a few that present a brick wall of difficulty. Enemy bases are generally built as actual towns and thus sprawl across the entire map and as such you need to scour the whole area to ensure that no structures are standing — if a single peasant escapes they may be able to rebuild. And anyone who has played the game remembers the siege of Serpentholm as a totally unfair 2 on 1 battle.

First things first, this army looks awesome. Second thing second the whole north half is filled with enemy buildings.

The Verdict

Battle Realms is a slim $10 on Good Old Games and I’d say that’s more than enough for the sheer experience of the story campaign and the pure gameplay. That being said GOG is working on providing servers to get multiplayer back online. Play with your friends! Get totally smashed by strangers on the internet — It’s great! If lightning shooting Warlocks or comically large swords played straight interest you in an RTS then this game might be up your alley.

Next Week: Armello

Mob Rule (PC)

You are an up and coming capo in another man’s mafia given the dubious privilege of commanding the Don’s forces. If you succeed, he takes the credit, if you fail, you take the fall. The big man’s got plans for you though, plans that will take you far. You’ve got to build businesses and organize your subordinates in order to destroy rival families and keep your ledger in the black. And whatever you do, never disobey the Don.

History

Made by Studio 3, the internal development branch of System 3, Mob Rule was meant to be a more combat oriented version of their previous game, Constructor. Mob Rule recycled the engine and a lot of the mechanics. It received worse reviews than Constructor at the time in large part to its UI change and mission goal restrictions.

It’s been picked up and distributed by Good Old Games these days and their port is competent and flexible but missing a vital aspect from the original, multiplayer. For whatever reason they removed the option to get a multiplayer game going. The multiplay format is no longer supported by modern Operating Systems but savvy coders have found ways to get it to run with a few downloadable programs. So I’ve got to ask GOG, where’s my mafia based multiplayer?

I mean, that’s the UI on the bottom panel. It’s not exactly intuitive.

Mob Rule was released on September 30th, 1999. It’s competition was Rollercoaster Tycoon (PC and apparently this game had an XBox port.), Dungeon Keeper 2 (PC), and Baldur’s Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast (PC).

Experiences

This is one of the first RTS games that I ever played and the first time I did it was on a demo disk. You remember, demos, those things that don’t exist any more where you play a little bit of the game to see if you like it — yeah, those. This demo was unlike any other I had played because it incorporated its ending into the mechanics of the demo. Lemme unpack that. So, most demos ended because they just told you that you’d played enough and would have to cough up the cash if you wanted to keep going. Mob Rule’s demo unleashed a giant enemy force on you that was too strong, who The Don ordered you not to harm, that wreck your businesses and kill your dudes. Then, when you get wiped out, the game says that if you want revenge that you could get it by buying the full game. Cheap, efficient, brilliant, and dastardly.

Gameplay

This game is not your average RTS, there’s no real base building, there isn’t really a diverse arrangement of units, and everyone is using the same tools. Since there’s no multiplayer anymore it’s all about the main campaign. The campaign is split into missions where The Don will give you various tasks, some of which put the hurt on your enemies whereas others are just there to create a challenge to forward progress. To achieve these ends you’ll have to employ workers, the low health/low damage guys who build buildings and perform menial tasks — but have strength in numbers. Fixers, who literally repair buildings, can hold their own in combat, and can take over enemy business. And Gangsters, who are the fast moving, hard hitting, well dressed, gun-toting, enforcers.

You build businesses on your available land that can either produce units or money, but not both at once. Each building can be upgraded twice, and lead into higher tiered businesses that produce more money and better units — ie. you can convert workers into fixers or gangsters but higher level businesses produce gangsters instead of workers. You upgrade buildings by installing gadgets from your gadget factory. There are also gadgets with more practical uses like the dog house that will provide a given property with a faithful — if glitchy– hound who will try to defend it.

Low class businesses are things like Soup Kitchens whereas high class business are Night Clubs.

If you’re still having some trouble crushing your enemies then you can hire the Undesirables to apply the hurt-lock by destroying their businesses or stealing their resources. And if your enemies are throwing these low-lives at you then you can bribe the police to aggressively patrol and arrest them. The game is like a giant Rock Paper Scissors game where everyone is trying to buy bigger tools. Just make sure you’ve got enough cash to keep the train going.

 The Gush

I love making a well oiled and self perpetuating machine in games and Mob Rule provides. There comes a moment when your security is tight, your businesses are in order, and you can just crank up the speed on the game. All pretense of micro-management thrown out the window — until that one prick builds a haunted prison and starts haunting your buildings.

Very rarely does the game put a time limit on you. You’re free to fart around as long as you please as long as you’ve got the cash to keep it going. You can build up your businesses and forces as long as you think you have to. With timed sections thrown in to increase the dramatic tension.

The game does a great job at teaching the player neat tricks to get an edge over their enemy especially through the missions. From focusing your gangsters and police at the choke points of your empire, putting buildings near your opponents businesses and letting them burn down and explode, or dumping bodies on your opponents property to inspire the police to raid the business. The game’s missions actually inspire the player to think laterally.

This game is silly as fuck. The 3-D sections and intermission cutscenes are pretty funny. I mean, I always wanted to command a giant, sentient, bipedal, walking cockroach and this game has given me that opportunity.

The animation and design is just totally goofy.

The Kvetch

The mission goals are sometimes poorly defined. About once per campaign I was given a mission where I didn’t know exactly what I needed to do or worse yet, thought I was doing the right thing and either the game wasn’t counting it or I wasn’t doing it correctly. It’s a real pace killer when it happens.

This game cheats. It’s form of difficulty is measured in how much the AI is allowed to cheat. They don’t have to worry about producing people, running out of money, or running out of undesirables. I know this is there to compensate for their AI, they’re not as good as a player, but there’s something unsatisfying about how they and I are not even playing by the same rules.

Sometimes the AI will just crap itself and you suffer because of it. There are plenty of mission scenarios where there’s someone you’re not allowed to attack or a building you’re not allowed to destroy. Sometimes though the AI will just start neglecting this building or character, they get destroyed, and then you lose.  And it happens once every time I play through the campaign so always keep an extra save file around.

A small quibble but sometimes the game doesn’t keep its terms straight is. The Don says that electric lights improve trade but they do nothing but allow you to upgrade your buildings. Sometimes its confusing when a gadget has a different name in the factory and in text that informs which gadgets are required to upgrade buildings.

The Verdict

This game is quite flawed. If the game didn’t catch your attention as soon as you heard about it then it probably won’t. The game is twenty years old and predates common RTS user interface. I’m pretty nostalgic for it so I keep going back but I think the real quality is finding ways to abuse the game and make a perfect machine. It’s 8 dollars on Good Old Games so I recommend it only if you think it sounds cool.

Next Week: Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3