	Rising Kingdoms
	Developer: Haemimont Games Publisher: Black Bean Games Release Date: Out Now Players: 1	Words By:
It wasn’t all that long ago that you couldn’t move for quality RTS games. Games such as Command and Conquer, Warcraft, Starcraft and Kingdom Under Fire sold good numbers and held good chart places. Massive communities arose around these games and user-created content abounded. Take a look at any PC games chart these days and you will be lucky to find any such game in the top 50, let alone the top 10! Traditional RTS games have simply fallen out of favour, to be replaced by hybrids like the half RTS, half FPS Sacred. Don’t get me wrong; I am not saying this is a completely bad thing! All game genres must evolve or they soon fall by the wayside, as gamers get bored of playing basically the same game with a new name tacked on. However, I was pleased to hear that Rising Kingdoms would be sticking to a more traditional RTS style. For centuries the world of Equiada was at peace. The races chosen by the gods to inhabit it lived in prosperity, creating grand cities all over the land. And all that continued… until the gods went silent. Bewildered by the sudden disappearance of their creators, the races soon lost trust in each other and began raising armies. Skirmishes and minor border conflicts turned to battles, which later turned to wars that nearly brought the world to an end. Now, generations later, after the dust of ancient destruction has settled, Equiada is filled with scores of kingdoms, remnants from the past. Using weapons of steel and ancient magic each of these kingdoms believes it alone has the right to rise anew and take its rightful place as the sole ruler of Equiada. From this unsettled world, Rising Kingdoms lets you play as either Humans, Darklings or Foresters. Each race offers a different level of difficulty to the player as each has its own advantages and disadvantages. The Humans have the ability to repair buildings and their armies have the best archers and cavalry, the Darklings can regenerate over time and are masters of powerful magic and sorcery, and the Foresters can call upon the powers of nature to aid them. Each race requires a distinctly different style of play and tactics that use their advantages to the fullest. As well as the standard units, all three races also have four champions. These warriors, sorcerers or assassins can develop skills or spells as the game progresses by collecting Glory. The more Glory a champion achieves, the more powerful he or she becomes. Glory is gained by attacking and defeating the numerous independent colonies dotted around each map. Once you have captured a colony, a number of its remaining occupants can be added to you own army to strengthen it as you are given the choice of new units to use. There are 5 different types of neutral colony in Equiada that can be captured by the player - Trolls, Elves, Shades, Dragons and Nomads. Dangling the Glory carrot in front of players in this way helps to avoid the problem of players simply sitting in their bases, building large armies and then going for one big battle. It also makes the game feel more like a progressing story, rather than a series of set pieces. Apart from this slight deviation, the game plays very much like any traditional RTS. Players must mine gold or gems (apart from Glory, the only two resources in the game) and use the funds to expand their settlement and their army. The unit number for each side is capped fairly low, keeping the battles a lot more personal than in games such as C&C. The campaign battles in general are pretty damn tough, due mainly to the very good AI of the enemy. The computer players are very efficient and intelligent, quickly adapting to various strategies. Units nearly always use their special powers at the most opportune time, and attack the greatest threats first as any human player would. Graphically, Rising Kingdoms isn’t going to have you rushing out to change your pants when you first see it. The visuals are tidy, they do the job, but they are never going to win awards. Personally however, I think this is a good thing in a game such as this. The environments should be sufficiently plain as to not obstruct your view of a critical battle and the units should be simple and instantly recognisable. The sound is also kept to a fairly basic level, with the usual grunting, shouting and clanging of swords in battle, but not much else. All in all, Rising Kingdoms is a solid, well put together fantasy RTS. It doesn’t really add anything particularly new to the genre (even if the Glory idea is a nice twist to resource building) and I can’t see it making the top 10, but fans of the genre should find it enjoyable. Now, time for me to go take control of that Darkling horde.

Best Bits
- Unique” Glory system
- Solid gameplay
- Distinctly different races

Worst Bits
- Not much of a looker
- Strict unit capping


by: Jingo