Gameplay

Strong start, but...

We couldn't help but feel that after the initial awe-inspiring impressions, Sacrifice tapered off much sooner than we'd expect. That mostly seems to come from a lack of variety - there isn't all that much in the game, really. Rune, Tribes 2 and even Quake III and UT all offer more, it seems. At least, that's how we feel.

That's a volcano growing *evil grin*

Booom hahahahaha

Being the evil bastiche!

The singleplayer campaign is excellent preparation for multiplayer action. As you advance the plot, you slowly build a growing variety of units and spells. You're the vagrant, a powerful wizard from a foreign world who appears to fulfill a prophecy in the world you enter.

There are 5 gods who you can play for. Persephone, the nature goddess, and James the god of earth form the two 'good' gods (James is an earthworm. Get it? Earthworm James? Earthworm Jim? *groan*). Stratos is the god of the sky, a neutral god who leans towards goodness. Seeing as he's all air, his corporeal, visible form is a... no, we can't give this away. Then there are two evil gods. One, Pyros, the god of fire is merely selfish and a boor. The other, Charnel, now he's evil. God of strife, of death, of slaughter - but even he has his limits and pales in comparison to the 6th 'god' on this world.

Hail to the king

That's the weak server browser

When you start the game, you appear on an island confronted by all 5 gods. At first, you can do missions for all 5. Whichever god you work for, he'll show you a new spell or a new minion specific to that deity - so it's possible to get a good variety of life and death creatures, for example. However, if you oppose or even ignore one god too much, he won't want to have anything to do with you.

Problem is, at times the game hints that if you work for one side and not the other, you'll lose the other's services. Be careful not to rely on these hints too much. When I went to James a few times too many, I got no warning that suddenly Persephone and Stratos would want nothing to do with me until it was too late.

This strange branching campaign offers Sacrifice some replayability for its singleplayer campaign.

Immortal Combat!

Missions are all about soul collection. Ignore whatever the game tells you. Whoever has the most souls, wins! Without souls, you can't summon enough troops. You can't summon troops to protect your altar, shrines and manaliths. You can't get minions to help you kill the enemy wizard, destroy his structures and protect you while you desecrate his altar. In that respect, the game seems single-minded, but other game aspects are enough to keep you occupied.

Yes, you're under a leaf now

Mana fountain in need of a manalith

You have to keep a good variety of troops around yourself. Any given trooper is good in only certain situations and may have special abilities that may be very useful. Have too much variety, however, and a specialized enemy force may roll over you. Finally, you have to consider the effect that the enemy wizard will have on the fight. Will he risk himself and get involved by casting spells or collecting souls, or will he stay back out of danger? Might he only send part of his force to distract you - sacrificing those souls so that he might go on a rampage, destroying your manaliths, shrines and hopefully your altar before you can stop him?

These are actions human opponents might try, but your computer enemies are also formidable - mostly through their intimate knowledge of your forces. Playing skirmish games against computer opponents in multiplayer is an exercise in frustration at times, since at any given moment they know your location and the composition of your forces - thus they always have a direct counter to you... at least, as long as they have the souls to play with.