The new way to feed my geekyness

I have recently began to play a new game, Simmons first had it and got me to try the demo. After previous game suggestions that have came from him, i was a little sceptical and who wouldn't be with such suggestions as: Dungeons and Dragons online? This one though i am glad i tried.

The game is an RTS, a game type i've always liked, whether it was Comand and conquer back when i played tiberian wars, Age Of Empires 2, The settlers 2 (anyone remember that on the amiga? It was fantastic, going to get a hold of the fairly new pc remake sometime) or most recently Warcraft 3.

This game, Battleforge has a slightly new twist on the genre which is both refreshing and fun. It combines the elements of table top card games. The game focuses mainly on Micro management of troops as opposed to the complex macro often found in some RTS's. Bases are simple and only really focus on 3 arguably 4 components. Firstly you have Power wells, taking these will increase the amount of power you gain per second, Power being your main and only resource. Secondly we have 'Orbs' which when we build we can make one of 4 elements. These 2 things are the only real buildings you will need, to make your army.

Each card you play, regardless of whether a spell, unit, or tower requires a certain amount of orbs of a particular type, so having more orbs unlocks more abilities and troops to command. Each card also has a power cost, power is used up when using the card, unlike orbs which always stay unless destroyed by the opposing team.

Then less importantly we have walls which can be built, these cost power to build and can only be built on key positions, mounting these with archers, perhaps placing some towers which is arguably the 4th component of the base, especially when people only have 1 or 2 orbs taken, it can be hard to break through these walls, in the later tiers they will fall in a second.

It also adds a social aspect, out of the matches themselves with auction houses to sell off and buy new cards. The game focuses heavily on pvp in the latter stages but also the co-op play of PvE is quite good.

All in all i really like this game, it backs up the new twist on the rts genre with fantastic graphics and effects. Using cards is quite interesting in this kind of game, the focus on the battle itself and taking key positions can mean quite quick matches. Each of the 4 'decks' have their own strengths and weaknesses, for instance fire as you might expect is very heavy on attack, whilst nature units tend to try and simply out last the damage with heal effects and immobolizing effects.

It's certainly worth a try to anyone who likes the RTS or fantasy genre's and even those who's interest in that stopped after the table top card games.

My only issue with the game is that it's ran by EA, this doesn't always bode well for some games. EA release some fantastic games from sweet studio's they've bought out over the years, but their support has never been top notch.

Following is a quick trailer i found which shows off a small amount of game play and the graphics, you wont see it in my facebook note, you'll have to click to goto the original article.