Rise of Legends (PC)

Once every few years, there comes a game which breaks with convention, a game that shatters and reforges the expectations of its genre, a game which changes the face of gaming.

Rise of Legends is not one of these games.

What it is, though, by the looks of things, is a very solid, good-looking real-time strategy title with the innovation and flavour to set it apart from the multitude of RTS games before it.

A sequel of sorts to 2003's Rise of Nations, Rise of Legends trades real-world historical flavouring for a new fantasy setting. The basic idea behind the game is a grand conflict between Magic and Technology. As a concept, it is quite intriguing, and will be a welcome breath of fresh air for those gamers tired of the cliché smell of orc.

The hands-on-preview that we, well, got our hands on introduces the Alim - a mystical, Arabian Nights-styled people - and the Vinci - technophiles who take their name, and apparently the designs for their flying machines and clockwork men, from Earth's legendary artist-inventor: Leonardo da. In a nutshell? It's the steam-goths versus the magicians of the near-East.

The split between these two sides is, at first, striking. However, after playing each for a short while, it would appear Arthur C. Clarke's maxim, that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", holds true. There may be varying strategies and gameplay further into the game, but, in the early stages at least, the differences are essentially cosmetic.

Speaking cosmetically, though, Rise of Legends does look pretty good. More importantly, though, official screenshots suggest that - "pretty good" be damned - the finished game will look fantastic. At the very least, it is worth noting the beautiful effects surrounding the Alim bases: floating cities around which the desert sands smoothly recede (even if the faction differences are all flavouring - it's good flavouring).

But their unique look isn't all that's interesting about the bases in Rise of Legends. Rather than going with the traditional RTS building sprawl, Rise of Legends' buildings (or, rather, 'districts') are attached to the main city, making bases into unified (and imposing) centrepieces, as well as streamlining the running of your military campaign.

Rise of Legends will also offer a couple of other exciting features: a world conquering campaign mode which splits between real-time and turn-based strategy, and quick multiplayer. The latter is achieved both by a speeding up of initial economic growth (translating to less time spent fussing about to build up infrastructure) and by better facilitating that hard-to-land 'killing blow' in the endgame.

Even if it isn't the life-changing innovative turn it might be, Rise of Legends has the ingredients necessary for a good game. This probably won't be a game to draw in players who aren't RTS fans, but it certainly looks to be the next big thing within its genre.

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