People seem to have an obsession with mixing good things together. Maybe there's just some inventor's spark inherent in everyone that conjures up the wild and crazy idea to fuse chocolate and peanut butter, or more likely, make that really bad "suicide" at the beverage bar. So, by logical extension, the business world tries to do the same. It happens in movies, books, and most especially, video games.
For the most part those turn out horrible. RPG + Racing never really took off. Real-time Dating Sim wasn't a good idea either. But, for every 100 or so of those bad blends, there's one product that manages to nail everything down solid.
Well, don't bother sorting through the other 99, because Savage is that 1.
I got home and checked out the box, right before I was about to head out to the gym (yes, I work out AND write game reviews. Reconcile THAT, stereotype-mongers.) and my friend and I were saying, "This game's going to suck. FPS and RTS?! There's no WAY you can make that work...unless you did it this way..." Then we proceeded to spend the next 15 minutes plotting out the ideal fusion of the two. Saying stuff like, "Well, you should probably have melee combat in 3rd person perspective, and then switch to 1st person for shooting, like they did with Jedi Academy." and "You can't have the Commander have too many units under his control, otherwise the FPS players are irrelevant...he'll just build a bunch of Med. Tanks and stomp you."
When we got everything installed and launched the game, our jaws nearly hit the floor. Imagine the general bewilderment we experienced when we realized that Savage was almost exactly the game we mapped out earlier. (except for the game's setting.) It's moments like these that rekindle the small spark of faith you have left in the game industry.
Warning Section
Ok...sorry to break in with a bit of a damper here, but there are something you'll need to know about Savage right off the bat.
1) There's No Single Player.
At least not in the conventional sense. It says the game's Multiplayer on the box, but doesn't explicitly state that that the game has no single player component. I'm pretty sure some people have picked this game up and not realized that the only way they can play this is online.
2) Plan 30 minutes to an hour to get your system updated.
I've been PC gaming since I was about 6 or 7. This is the first time I'd EVER seen a game ask me to upgrade the motherboard's firmware. We nearly jettisoned the game right there. This was on top of asking for the latest and greatest video card drivers, and the latest version of Direct X. After the updates are done, though...it's all good. The game runs at the highest res on my friend's machine, and even in full games, we haven't experienced enough slowdown to affect the game's enjoyability.
So, while it's a lot to ask, the results are worth, and you should enjoy the benefits of the updated drivers outside of the confines of Savage.
3) Hurled to the Wolves.
There's no real instructions for the game. They just tell you to dive right in. I'll provide some general instruction for playing, but the game shouldn't rely exclusive on you meeting friendly people online to teach you the ropes. Most stuff I just eventually figured out on my own, but it would have been helpful to get some guidance.
But, now that we've gotten all that out of the way, we can move forward with a pretty enjoyable journey through Fusion-Ville.
Ok...How's an RTSS Work?
This game works as an RTS for 1 player on each side. They're the Commander, and their game consists of asking their fellow players to build things, research upgrades and all that. For the up to 62 other people in the game, you'll be part of your standard FPS...only with building, harvesting resources, and levelling.
I never played as the Commander, as the game really, really suffers for everyone else if you have a bad Commander. Not wanting to deal with a angry mob of 31 other players, I settled for the role of soldier, instead. As the soldier, you've got 3 basic jobs you can perform; harvesting resources, building structures, and of course, killing those punks who happen to stand for everything you're against.
You have a small personal amount of cash. You increase this amount by taking out critters, and enemies. If you don't land the final blow, you simply can't pick up the resultant cash. You use your cash to buy a unit for yourself. You also use it to purchase upgrades to your personal arsenal. If you're coming back from the heat of battle, and you need to reload, and come back to find that the commander's researched ice attacks, you can go ahead and pick them up for yourself if you've got the cash. If you're a little short on plunder, you can hit a button which sends over the necessary budgetary request forms to your commander, who then decides if he can take from the main coffers to let you get an upgrade.
Obviously if you're the type of guy who just rushes out and gets wasted or doesn't really follow orders too much, you probably aren't ever going to get that request granted. The Commander will look down and see, "Oh, 4 kills and 18 deaths and he wants the most powerful unit in the game? Uh...no." Following orders and being effective is a good idea for another reason, because as time progresses the Commander gets other bonuses to dole out, improved armor and weaponry, as well as an Officer's position. So, if you can't be Number 1, well, you can be someone else's Number 1.
As you do well in whichever aspect of the game you happen to be good at, you'll increase in level. Building a lot (you do this by clicking the attack button a bunch) will increase your build skill. Getting 3+ consecutive kills will give you an attaboy, and if you keep harvesting, well, generally you get an award at the end of the round for following orders the most.
With a decent variety of units and weaponry, the game's got enough to keep you interested short term, and the box promises incremental content upgrades, so, stick with it, and you're likely to reap a level of enjoyability from Savage that's right up there with Battlefield 1942.
Graphics
Stuff looks pretty good. The various elemental effects make the game easy on the eyes, and the textures all over the map aren't really anything to complain about either. Nothing that I saw as completely impressive, but also nothing that springs to mind that looked awful either.
Audio
The game could have done better in the audio department. The music is pretty good, but the limited set of voices and sound effects is where the game scores poorly, in my mind. I think there are maybe 4 selectable commander voices, 2 for one side, and 2 for the other. The easiest thing to include in a game is other voice sets...that's why Baldur's would let you put your own in...just drop .wav files into a directory, and it'll fire them off. So, that being the case, I hope there's a voice set upgrade when the new content gets added.
Gripes
More than anything else, this game suffers from a lack of variety. You don't have all that many units to choose from, even when the tech tree is fully researched. They are customizable to your individual play style with the various items you can hold, but even still, it'd be nice to have a larger variety of stuff. I think this game would do better with a more futuristic setting...you can plausibly create any number of laser guns, etc, but in Savage, you have a bow, a bow with a scope, a shotgun, a machine gun, and a sniper rifle. Medieval time period games find their weapon variety in armors, runed weapons, magic, things of that nature. Generally in a first person shooter, you're looking to shoot things. Without a really cool weapon or animation set for fighting with swords and claws, and stuff, you're generally looking to keep your distance.
There also needs to be a more elegant way to rid your team of an ineffective Commander. Seeing as how he's responsible to the enjoyment of the game for all the teammates involved (if you're on a team that's gotten half their upgrades and you're still using the starting basic unit...you're not having a good time.) there needs to be some time period on the impeached Commander anticipating impeachment and reclaiming that position, or restarting the game if the Commander's exceptionally incompetent. (A vote from the other team would be in order, otherwise you've have guys who, as soon as they were losing, would impeach their Commander.)
But, since this game is online, and provides for incremental upgrades, I see no reason why these couldn't be easily rectified in the future. I mean it's not like Star Wars Galaxies where you got promised a ton of content, and then had it all taken away...you have a good game right now, and it promises to get better, not, you have a game that was supposed to be good at launch, but isn't and then promises that it'll change and never cheat on you again, and by the way, it needs $15.99/month.
Overall
Savage is the fusion of RTS and FPS that I imagined would make for the most enjoyable game. It's simple, it's elegant, and most of all, it's a blast. I can think of no better way to sum this all up than to describe how the installation went. I had to borrow my pal Nobby's machine to run this on, as my computer is currently on strike. I guess it wants health care benefits or something...even worse, it convinced the car to go on strike too...
Anyway, we go to install it on his machine, and the whole time he's going off on how he hates RTS games, and how if we were going to install it on his machine, I was going to be the one playing it, not him. Then he finds out about all the various driver upgrades. He's pissed, but does them all anyway. We launch the game, and find out there's no single player, so he gets in and start monkeying around. I get in a couple games and let him go back to playing. He comes by at 11 to get me to go the gym, "Sorry I'm late," he says, "I was playing Savage until 4am."
That ladies and gentlemen, is what you call a complete 180.
