Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising Review
The great Caesar Augustus -- namesake of our eighth month, and initiator of the Pax Romana -- once famously remarked that he found Rome in bricks and left her in marble. It's a statement that should have been particularly inspiring for the folks over at Heatwave, the development team that inherited this dusty relic of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game from Perpetual Entertainment early last year... but it's hard to shake the impression that Heatwave merely contented itself with applying some mortar to Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising's brittle framework. It's a shame, really; Gods & Heroes shows obvious affection for its ancient setting, its "estates" provide some semblance of player interaction with the world, and its minion system carries plenty of potential. As it stands, however, this incarnation of Rome feels anything but eternal.
But make no mistake, this is ancient Italy, and it's hard not to admire the historical detail given to many of the architectural models (if you can overlook the dated visuals). The legendary Senate House, for instance, retains its cramped historical simplicity here, in stark defiance to the dozens of more fantastic interpretations in films. Villages appropriately look like far-flung provincial settlements as opposed to the column-riddled theme parks one would expect from more stereotypical presentations. And everywhere, the creatures of Roman mythology rub shoulders with legionnaires and toga-clad nobility. By the time you've left the starting zone, you'll have battled a centaur, vanquished a gigantic metal colossus, and raced past menacing fauns in the meadows.
If only it looked better. Many of the buildings in Gods & Heroes look like they first saw life as educational renderings for an archaeology course, and they usually lack the textures and dynamic lighting one expects from a contemporary MMO. Occasionally, a bucolic vista or the detail on a gladiator's helmet spark some wonder, but the city streets and basic character models reek of 2005. The good news is, this means Gods & Heroes generally runs well on most PCs even when cranked to the highest settings; the bad news is, the highest settings are so disappointing that I regularly found myself checking to see if I'd accidentally turned them off. A competent musical score makes up for these visual letdowns to some extent, but it only takes one stroll through the absurdly dark nights to remind you of the visual deficiencies.
Barely a month after the game's release, Gods & Heroes already feels like the Visigoths have sacked the joint and left it to rot until the Renaissance. I slogged through several levels before I ever saw another player, and three hours of playtime once went by before I saw someone say anything in the global chat channel. As it happens, on one brief occasion, I became convinced that I was actually playing some press-only version of the game while thousands of other players were engaging in bacchanals on a retail server I'd somehow missed. Even now, I remain fairly certain that only one real "tribe" (i.e., guild) exists on my server.
Thankfully, you're never truly alone. The key attraction of Gods & Heroes is a novel "minion" system, which lets you bring an eventual total of four A.I. companions on your quests. These brave compatriots can be defenders, skirmishers, or spellcasters -- and they run the gamut from cloth-bound healers to hulking mythological monstrosities. When the system works, it's like playing with a group of four silent players who actually have a decent grasp on what they're doing. In theory, at least, your defender companion will always run up and taunt an enemy away from a weak mystic or priest; elsewhere, your healer will mend you if you're close to death. And regardless of which class you play (mystic, gladiator, soldier, or priest), you acquire dozens of these minions to complement your play style, via quests and random wanderings. Think of it as Pokemon for Praetorians.
But in Heatwave's version of Rome, these soldiers sometimes spurn the empire's famed penchant for discipline. While you can use a simple tactical interface to arrange your companions, you'll often find that they do what they want. Place an enemy under some crowd-control effect, for instance, and your brave companions will frequently start whacking on him anyway. On other occasions, your defenders will fail to taunt an adversary who's about to kill you. At other times still, your companions will stop attacking once one enemy is down in a fight, even with other enemies still engaged in combat. Thanks to faults like these, minions periodically become headaches in Gods & Heroes' few instanced dungeons.
But at least you can retire to your ancestral estate. This is Gods & Heroes' unique form of player housing, which you must spend the game rebuilding after its destruction by Telchine cultists. The place is a wreck at first, but you can restore it to its former glory by tackling missions that yield supplies and upgrades as you level. As you complete each structure, you gain access to a small number of benefits (such as outfitters for your minions) that aid you in ways that you won't find in the cities beyond. Unfortunately, only you can visit your estate. And while Heatwave has plans to improve the experience, you currently have no control over where each building goes, and you can't show off your villa to any of your friends.
Beyond these innovations, Gods & Heroes offers a disappointingly standard MMO experience. You'll find more than enough quests to keep you busy to the level cap of 30, although these never really rise above the complexity of "kill 10 of these" and "collect five of those." Quests, indeed, become the focus of the endgame, since Gods & Heroes currently lacks any kind of crafting or auction system. Player-versus-player combat is nonexistent, and the minion system has the odd effect of discouraging dungeon runs, since players become used to tackling everything alone. Unless you're the rare sort of person who can name the emperor who worshiped Sol Invictus, you won't find much to keep yourself interested long-term.
Beyond these innovations, Gods & Heroes offers a disappointingly standard MMO experience. You'll find more than enough quests to keep you busy to the level cap of 30, although these never really rise above the complexity of "kill 10 of these" and "collect five of those." Quests, indeed, become the focus of the endgame, since Gods & Heroes currently lacks any kind of crafting or auction system. Player-versus-player combat is nonexistent, and the minion system has the odd effect of discouraging dungeon runs, since players become used to tackling everything alone. Unless you're the rare sort of person who can name the emperor who worshiped Sol Invictus, you won't find much to keep yourself interested long-term.
And a multitude of bugs and rough spots spoil some of Gods & Heroes' better aspects, such as its otherwise-decent character animations; at points, for example, I found my ranged caster wrestling with an invisible foe (who was actually several yards away). Elsewhere, certain sections of the UI inform you that a certain feature is "NOT WORKING," and you often can't even figure out what might not be working, since nothing's listed in the tutorial menu. Quests pose their own problems; while you can find your objectives on the main map, you won't find them on the minimap (which is particularly annoying, since most quest objectives don't sparkle or do anything else to stand out). Strangest of all is an odd delay before entering combat, which keeps your opponent from responding to your attack for around a second after you engage.
I think a great game is waiting to be excavated here. Gods & Heroes' minions, estates, and Roman setting offer a striking alternative to the established fantasy mold that largely defines the MMO landscape these days, and it's a shame that this promising title doesn't currently offer a better endgame to make up for its shortcomings. Gods & Heroes might have made a passable showing in 2005 in its current state, but in this age of Rift and the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic, Heatwave's new release might as well be a Pompeian graffito in a Rembrandt exhibition. Can Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising improve over time? Undoubtedly, but at this rate, it's all too possible that the game will never recover from this poor showing. This die, as one Roman in particular might have agreed, has already been cast
.
Source: GameSpy
