Lords of Everquest - getting ready to re-shelve it fairly soon. Making an effort to chip away at the backlog of older bargain-bought games still in the plastic.
RTS in the land of Everquest, back in the days when WoW was just hitting the scene, and Sony thought that maybe theyd try their hand at Blizzard's game. I dont think they realized how far the pendulum was going to swing the other way when it came to Blizzard trying their song and dance..
But anyway, it's a WC-esque take on the EQ lore. It's different in some ways - scaled back resource and base management. Only one resource, Platinum. No need most times in SP to build up that much, most of the missions are of the pre-set-army-that-discovers-reinforcements variety. And there's something to be said for that, I kinda like just focusing on the tactics. But that's where it kinda falls apart... the unit control is pretty bad. Unit stances are nonexistent, well they might as well be, since every time you issue a move order they go back to the default 'aggressive' and will chase an enemy across the map.
I like the way that all your units gain xp as they fight, and subsequently level up, granting them new powers eventually. Each mission youre also awarded points that you can spend to take a few of your favorite minions to the next stage w/ you upon completion of the level. So they bumped-up the rpg, and that's kinda cool, unfortunately the enemy ai is so utterly lame - you end up all dressed up w/ nowhere to go. They act just like they do in the MMO, standing around waiting for you to come and grind on them, it's like the whole map is just a series of creeps, parsed by a few scripted encounters. Theyll never show up at your base or anything, so there's no need to build defenses or be anxious about a home invasion. I like to turtle sometimes and just see how long i can last, definitely a no-go in this game.
All in all, it was worth the like 6 bucks or so i paid for it, it's a little fun now and then running my little lion guy hero around whooping on things, but it's gettin old quick. Another one bites the dust!