Genre: Real-time Strategy
Developer: Phenomic Game Development
Publisher: Encore

Utilizing a terrain engine that makes use of high-resolution textures, and featuring an elaborate shadowing model, SpellForce's stages look the part of a modern PC game, and the engine at max detail, appropriately, chugs occasionally on even the Sager NP8890 laptop I used to run this title. The character models are another story though: the player and baddie units are displayed with primitively simplistic models, mostly solid-color textures, and it's very difficult to tell individual unit types apart. SpellForce looks like a current-generation PC title, but is no Doom 3 to be certain.

There are a number of American-cinema-esque orchestrated tunes that range from mellow, stringed ditties to clashing cymbals striking up a battle measure. Mostly the cliched fantasy fare we're all used to by now, the music is a bit too heavy mostly, one can only take so much intense "Off to battle!" orchestra tunes before it induces a headache. The voice acting, aside from the protagonists', is awfully unconvincing and stilted, with big delays between words and over-enunciation of syllables. Audioally, this is a pretty typical, mainstream PC game.

SpellForce's gameplay mechanics are mostly stripped straight from a slew of other RTS games, with Warcraft III being the most significant victim. Like the aforementioned game, SpellForce has "heroes", which level up as they defeat foes. Except in SpellForce, the player controls a primary hero who can be equipped with armor, weapons, and other RPG-type elements. Aside from this protagonist-driven character development, SpellForce plays like a watered down RTS, lacking the quantity of units and the balancing of those units' powers to match the big players in the genre.

SpellForce is, for some unknown reason, marginally fun in the beginning: the production quality seems sufficient, the game doesn't strictly follow the mission-driven map-based gameplay of other RTS titles, and the sarcastic protagonist lends the game some personality. Whatever redeeming factors this game has are overwhelmed by the fifth or so "area", where the game becomes absurdly and unnecessarily difficult. I do not claim to be a master of RTS games, but neither is most of the populace. As well, even if the game were easier, the lack of strategy due to shallow gameplay mechanics would probably not make this game much fun for long. If you want an RPG, play Morrowind, and if you want a RTS, play Warcraft III.