Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War Critic Reviews

There's a reason I haven't said much yet about the RTS that sits serenely at the core of Rise & Fall. That reason is there really isn't much to say beyond it's good solid stuff with a strong whiff of Ensemble's best work.

As of press time, several negative Rise and Fall reviews have cropped up online. Mine is the dissenting opinion; in my mind, this RTS' fun and innovative gameplay far outweighs its minor faults.

A good enough looking title (if your PC can cope with all the gloss turned on), an intuitive HUD, and epic music all helps with the immersion. There are a couple of niggling glitches that could be improved over time through patches, Civilizations at War nonetheless remains a solid title, and one that non-RTS action heavy gamers should check out.

Rise & Fall manages to bring some welcome action to a normally slower-paced genre, but it sometimes feels like this is at the expense of tactics.

The movements of the characters are nigh hilarious and detract from a true serious experience. If you don't get hung up on that, you will probably have just a grand ole time.

A game that had it all, great design, excellent graphics. All it lacked was time.

With the many varied objectives and the third person mode there is a nice change in gameplay that is quite refreshing from the usual kill all the enemies or get to a certain point on the map.

More could have been done with this game. A little more creativity, a lot more programming, and I believe they could have had something quite good on their hands.

Ignore the lumpen campaign and you have an RTS with some big ideas.

If you have always wanted to control a main unit on the battlefield in an RTS game then I recommend getting this title. If you are a die-hard RTS fan and you only want that then I have mixed feelings about this game for you.

Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War is a passable hybrid of a console action game with a PC real-time strategy game. And while it's not terribly good at either genre, it's interesting enough as a combination.

Ultimately, Rise & Fall is about pretty units killing each other in a beautifully drawn environment and little more. It's a good strategy skirmish, but it falls short of eternal glory.

It soon becomes clear that not only is this a deep, well-crafted and carefully balanced RTS, brimming with features, but also that the developer is desperately trying to encourage a wider audience than the core strategy crowd.

I am particularly a fan of the naval battle, actually the ramming of another ship and seeing my enemy’s armies flying high up the sky.

Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War isn't a bad game; rather, it is a noble effort that simply falls short of its goals.

For all its strengths, in the campaign mode it's hardly making history.

In the end, Rise & Fall attempts a few innovative things with the real-time strategy genre, though it's hurt by the fact that it wants to be both a hardcore real-time strategy game and a fast-paced action game. Unfortunately, it's hard to have it both ways in this genre, as the action mode is bound to frustrate and disappoint strategy fans.

As an RTS it’s as entertainingly humdrum as any of the sixteen billion others, but the Hero Command innovation is so wretchedly underdeveloped it mostly serves to annoy and all but ruins the game’s single player campaigns. It’s fun in multiplayer and skirmish modes for a while, but Rise & Fall is far from the classic game that it could have been.

Sadly, there's very little reason to recommend this title fans of the strategy or action genres. While there are some decent features, there are too many mistakes built thrown on top of an altogether bland design.

We can’t put our finger on it, but Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War just isn’t that fun. Despite having some fantastic features, it’s confusing to see so many games repeat the same mistake over and over again. Poor AI is a curse for RTS games, and Rise & Fall doesn’t do much to avoid this. It’s disappointing that such a fantastic concept falls flat on its stomach due to some minor, but unforgiving, mistakes.