SpellForce: The Order of Dawn

The Good
I played the game several times all the way through to the end first as a warrior and later as a Necromancer. I found playing as spell caster a bit more difficult in the beginning than playing as a warrior but both was fun.

You play as a former servant of one of the mages that were responsible for the fractured world the game takes place in. Because of this most npc don’t like you at first. As an immortal rune warrior your death is meaningless as you are bound to a stone and will respawn if killed in battle at the last activated bind stone (stones around the map that can be switched on and used for fast travel). This is a good thing as the progress you have made is not lost so you don’t have to destroy an enemy encampment all over again when you are killed or are overwhelmed by the AI and are forced to leave the map. You only lose a bit of exp but its best to stay alive of coarse:). It’s always a good thing to try and thin the herd and raise some poorly defended spawning points before building a base.

Along the way you will find hero and worker runes of six races to aid you in battle witch can be trained at their respective monument. Each monument that you activate costs rune power that will affect the rate in which you can built your workers, warriors and heroes. To build these runes you need to place their stones in your rune board. As you level up you find and can use runes higher level. So if you forget to insert the highest level of stone you can use your units might be too weak for the AI units on the map. Usually not a problem to be a little behind but when killing a boss of a high level it makes a real difference. I found the game at first difficult probably because I played it as pure RTS and the AI wastes no time after you have activated a monument of one of the races in producing units to eventually overwhelm you and force you to abandon the map. But first killing of some enemies and reduce the number of spawning points in RPG mode (alone or with up to five fully equipable heroes) makes the game much easier to play. A defensive line of five or more towers will also make short work of the attackers.

Another thing I liked was that all the maps are connected by magical portals and when crossed can be revisited. Often needed for one of the many side quests. I found the story in the massive singe player campaign quite entertaining with an original plot twist at the end and nice graphics and audio tracks.

The Bad
The units and buildings of the various races are quite similar and could have been a bit more race specific. When it first came out it was a bit buggy and sometimes crashed but with all the patches it plays fine. Some of the voice acting could be better.

The Bottom Line
Overall a very nice and entertaining game with a good story. And a much better RTS/RPG hybrid than its successor. So if you like this game play the two expansions instead before trying part 2.