Mike Bantick
Wednesday, 29 April 2009 11:13
Entertainment
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Fan of pick-up-and-play? Demigod does a good job of layering the experience. There is much depth to explore, but the basic game is easy enough to jump straight into with only limited knowledge of RTS or RPG.
Much of this ability is due to the control mechanism. Because each player is only in control of a single demigod, with maybe the occasional minion, much of the battle continues on around them. As Brad Wardell from Stardock points out; “The player’s focus is almost exclusively on their Demigod. There is no base building, and you don’t control every unit in your army.”
This result is a manageable game that whilst requiring a macro view, enables micro control of the Demigod to achieve the team’s goals. One of the best offshoot benefits of this, finally we have a highly zoomable RTS where the player can spend much of their time zoomed in close on their demigods action, rather than the traditional high level position of similar games.
Graphically Demigod looks the goods, despite the chaos; much of the presentation is clear and beautiful. As Grunts stream from portals owned by either side, they will either be cut down by base defences or clash in frenzied battles with rival cannon fodder.
Demigod uses a process of loading the 3D meshes into the video card during the first game load – the idea being that that this will give owners of a wide variety of machine power access to a beautiful looking game. The sacrifice, Gas Powered Games say, is the initial game load. My experience was that of the load times not feeling excessive at any point, whilst my machine is moderately powerful, it looks as if GPG have achieved their goals here.
The demigods themselves are a mixed bag, some could have used a little more animation frames to distinguish them from others. Demigod’s such as the semi-naked Thorn Queen, giant cat riding Sedna and the towering Rook work really well however.
In fact, the 50 foot tall man-castle Rook, who appears on the cover art, will sell many a boxed version of this game through imagery alone. Details such as little archer towers on the behemoths shoulders and his death animations make Rook the poster-boy for Demigod.
Sound effects are prominent, but the voice-overs, whilst informative wear thin pretty quick. There is only so many times I can take, what sounds like Christopher Lee’s Sauraman, telling me that “A Dark Fortress is being attacked” within a set minute before I go nuts.
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