Stormrise (Xbox 360, PS3) Preview

Posted by Ramon Aranda on 08.19.2008

First look: An RTS with a lot of ambition.



RTS titles are a rare breed in the console market. It's easy to see why as the controls to quite lend themselves too well to the genre, especially in comparison to the PC counterparts. Well Creative Assembly Studios and Sega have something up their sleeves that could revolutionize the genre with Stormrise for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

The premise of Stormrise is that it's set on a bleak and barren Earth, devastated by a catastrophic event centuries ago. The Echelon and the Sai are battling to survive in a hostile and uninhabitable wasteland. Remnants of a superior technological people the Echelon survived the event through self-educed hibernation, while the Sai, a more tribal faction, still exist having learned to adapt to their surroundings and the new environment. Having evolved in vastly different ways, the differences between the two factions have spurred much animosity and hatred between the two races and the future of the planet is now hanging by a thread, which brings you into the mix.

Though the game is an RTS, you'll also have the ability to go into the third person view. The team has been hard at work on this title since developing Medieval II. They understand that the controls will have to be simplified a bit so the interface can be controlled with the two analog sticks and one action button. The vantage point can be locked onto any unit on the map – natural line of sight which helps for tactical approaches. You can of course zoom out and use the analog sticks to move around the map to get different perspectives. You can set certain tactics to each of the selected unit groups to defend, attack, patrol or take cover. Every group of units also has a particular icon assigned to them so if you happen to be looking at a different part of the map, you'll be able to see with the on-screen icon, just where exactly your other units are located. So you may be thinking? Do I then have to drag the analog stick to the edge of the map to find my other unit? It seems like that's we've been having to do in various titles and luckily the answer is no. The team uses the right stick to use their "Whip Select" feature. Using this feature will pull up almost like a lighthouse beam where you can scan the map in 360 degrees and letting go of the analog stick when the unit of your choice is selected will then give you control. It looked quite easy to do and yet very effective.

As it was explained by the producers, in most RTS games, the games themselves are on a 2D plane with 3D graphics but with Stormrise, the game is fully 3-dimensional. You can go in and around various objects and there is a sense of verticality – for example there's a particular level that you'll battle underground and above ground so there are literally areas to explore everywhere. You can pretty much move the camera anywhere you'd like to give you full control of what you want to analyze. At one point of the demo, this Predator looking guy was assigned to be a scout so he jumped around the top of a handful of buildings to get a bird's eye view of the battleground. Then, using that point of view you can take charge of other units and figure out how and from what direction to attack. As with most RTS' you can still of course takeover or build new structures such as refineries and turrets for instance while upgrading them along the way. The unique thing with the game though is that you can sell your structures or turn them off depending on how much energy you plan on using for your buildings.

The look of the game was pretty impressive too. Everything looked very sharp and detailed while zooming in and out of the map or taking the point of view from a specific unit kept the same graphical appearance. We were shown a massive battle towards the end of the demo where we saw explosions, guns a-blazing and a ton of units on-screen at the same time.



There will be 8-player multiplayer and you can jump in and out of battles as you please like in an FPS game. Split-screen coop will also be included and the game will have about a 10-12 hour of single player mode.

Stormrise looked like a very promising title and I'll be looking forward to go hands-on with it in the coming months. Sega is aiming for a 2009 release.