Sacrifice to your Gods... preferably Persephone, but Stratos will do in a pinch

[The Rose Dragon]

So, Sacrifice. One of the greatly undervalued treasures of gaming history.

Sadly, a game I never got to play.

It's just that my country has only recently (in the last 6 years or so) criminalized piracy (weird, huh?) and I couldn't find a copy of the game anywhere (I did play the demo a dozen times, though).

But I did find the game available on Good Old Games and am considering buying it.

Should I? Is it as good as the demo makes it out to be? For anyone who played it recently, does it age well, like specific kinds of fine wine? Or does it age badly, like cheap vaguely beerish swill you find in cheap stores?

[Trazoi]

If you enjoyed the demo it's worth buying Sacrifice, especially at the price Good Old Games is offering it for. It's not something I keep playing over and over again years later, but I had fun playing it. Although it was very different it felt somewhat similar to Magic Carpet, one of my favourite games ever.

I can't say if it's aged well, as I haven't played it recently and I don't know your tolerance to older games (I'm sure I'd still have fun with it today, but I regularly play games that are a decade or two old). To my knowledge there hasn't been any games out quite like it, so it's not like playing an outdated FPS where modern games outclass them in every area.

[revolver kobold]

Its aged surprisingly well. I mean, it won't hold up under very close scrutiny, but the animations are still very neat by today's standard, and you have have a tremendous amount of action happening on the screen with no loss of frame rate, which is a plus.

Persephone is definitely my favorite of the Gods. Nothing lasts for long under a barrage of Dragons and Rain of Frogs, backed up by a constant spam of Rainbow.

[Blayze]

Bah! Take yer Persephones and yer Stratos...es, James is where it's at!

[chiasaur11]

Bah! Take yer Persephones and yer Stratos...es, James is where it's at!

He does look a tad like Earthworm Jim. That is a plus.

[MickJay]

I've played it about 2 years ago, it was quite fun. The graphics is slightly outdated, but not much. The plot is really good, music is okay, but the game's real strength is in gameplay itself. I'd get it.

[revolver kobold]

Bah! Take yer Persephones and yer Stratos...es, James is where it's at!

While James was pretty awesome, having his 5 Soul Unit be a walker, then giving him a spell that destroys the ground...

I leaned that lesson the hard way.

[Premier]

What, no love for the progress and industry of Pyro? Firepower all the way, baby!


With James as my good guy-pick.

[Corlindale]

Stratos all the way.
While I liked how the campaign allowed you to switch sides and build up a variety of powers (especially since the powers and creatures of all gods came in both awesome and useless varieties), I eventually ended up completing the game with my all-Stratos wizard. Some of the later levels were pretty evil, though eventually I found a strategy that seemed to work.

It's a great game in my opinion, one of my favourite RTS games and certainly very unique for that genre - it plays like nothing else I've ever tried, and can be very chaotic at times, but mostly in a good way. There's so much you have to pay attention to that it really gets the adrenaline pumping.
Perhaps there is a slight parallel to the older Battlezone-games, even if the setting probably couldn't be more different.

[misterk]

This is one of those retro games that I can't enjoy. Bought it on rock paper shotgun's recommendation, but find the control system endlessly frustrating. I want it to be about controlling my minions round a central mage, but having the camera stuck to me, and a supposedly helpful interface which means endless tree menus of doom meant I didn't get very far with this.

[MickJay]

That might be a problem, but if you master the shortcuts quickly, controlling the minions gets much easier.

[Corlindale]

Most of the time, I just left most of my creatures on "Guard Me!" in various formations depending on type, and then just moved them by moving me, and let them attack what came near. It's probably not the most optimal way, but I simply don't have time to manage creatures in detail while simultaneously casting spells and collecting souls.

I hot-keyed groups by type (melee, shooter, artillery, flier, bomber, manahoar, support), though, so on the occasions where I did need to give specific orders it was usually as simple as pressing 3 and right-clicking on target (usually for attacking buildings or for focus-fire on a wizard).

[MickJay]

That's what I did, most of the time. Shooters in long lines on both sides, melee up front, flyers depending on type, but usually behind me in line. Sometime's I'd start by sending an extra group of melee units to engage the enemies, but on later levels the spells are powerful enough to be a sufficient "starter". In case of volcano, also an ender :smalltongue:

[revolver kobold]

That's what I did, most of the time. Shooters in long lines on both sides, melee up front, flyers depending on type, but usually behind me in line. Sometime's I'd start by sending an extra group of melee units to engage the enemies, but on later levels the spells are powerful enough to be a sufficient "starter". In case of volcano, also an ender :smalltongue:

For extra fun, if you see a wizard cast either Volcano or Tornado, cast Bore on it, and watch what happens.