Jimmays.com

The world of computer games is a vast world. There can be many different flavors of computer games, varying from Flight Simulators, to city management games, to real time strategy games and first person shooters.

Savage 2 is the type of game that merges game types, in a way that hasn’t been seen in this type of package before.

This game actually combines the real time strategy component of games, and the role playing / third person type of game, and merges them into one.

I first found Savage 2 by typing these fateful words into Google: “Free MMO RPG.” This was a VERY bad thing to do. See, I enjoy World of Warcraft tremendously, but the game is expensive as all hell. Having to pay $15 a month, every month is a lot to pay. Sure you get a lot out of it, and I am not going to say it is a bad value, but cheap it is not.

This lead me to try to find an experience similar to World of Warcraft, that wasn’t necessarily identical. That’s when I came across Savage 2.

When visiting the web site I was at first skeptical about this ‘FREE’ thing they had going on. I didn’t know if this was free for a month, then you pay or something, or what it was. I was expecting a ‘catch.’ As it turns out there is no catch – other than if you pay to upgrade your online account, you get more ‘stuff.’

Fortunately these do not restrict your ability to play a very fun and deep game. They simply restrict you to things like 4 item slots instead of 6, and things along those lines. They don’t make you weaker or anything like that. Of course if you want, you can pay $10 bucks and gain those extra slots and extra perks. This appears to be a one time fee.

After downloading this game, not knowing much about it, I instantly went into the tutorial. This was my chance to understand exactly what was going on. As it turns out there is a lot.

The first part required me to learn basic combat maneuvers, which seemed pretty straight forward. There was your standard WASD movement, 3rd person view, and you had your standard 1, 2, 3 … etc keys for magic and general abilities. This seemed pretty straightforward, as it mirrored World of Warcraft pretty well (with the exception of simple projectile weapons being used in Savage 2).

The next part required me to play the game in RTS mode. This is where things got strange. I had no issues controlling the players to do certain things, and was able to follow directions to victory quite easily.

This confused me though. I had no idea how the game would be played outside of tutorial mode. I didn’t know what was what, and ultimately I felt very lost at this point.

I played the tutorial one more time and once again, did not know how exactly I was going to play this in non-tutorial mode. I then headed online to play live.

Ultimately, I realized, I was to choose. While only one person can play in ‘God’ mode (RTS mode, or as Savage 2 calls it, ‘Commander’), no one person is conscripted to play the part. It is voluntary. If more than one person offers, then a simple vote is taken to determine who is commander.

Teams are auto-balanced (to an extent) and everyone who isn’t a Commander fights in 3rd person mode. This mode is pretty straightforward, and it is up to these people to conquer areas for their commander to build mines to gather gold (the game’s currency) and to fortify it with towers.

The action can be fast and intense, and each round can last anywhere from 10-15 minutes, to over an hour.

The game being mainly online-only is both good and bad. Dealing with humans is hard to deal with, as some go off to fight their own battles, and it makes it tough to defend certain areas, and capture others. As commander, or a player on the field of battle, it can be frustrating to work as a team.

Commanders generally play a small role in the outcome of the game if not keeping up with the game. Commanders how wonderful powers that can allow them to heal players in the field of battle, resurrect fallen teammates, and various other spells that affect players. Commanders even have spells that can effect enemy players.

The commander can only see what is revealed in the fog of war. The fog of war generally works the same as in any RTS, which essentially is viewable as the players move around the map. Since these characters are controlled by other people, it takes some coordinating to get tactics in order. It is quite possible for players in the field to see enemies before the commander will.

On the subject of teams, it appears that the two races are not balanced. This is hard to measure since individual skill levels of the people playing cannot be measured. It seems, though, like the Beast Horde have the upper hand.

In my experience playing the game the Beast Horde usually win the game, in spite of the Human’s best efforts. Usually if the Humans win it is due to the other team being down a man or they simply don’t care.

And talking about being down a man, the way the selection system works, it seems that the beast horde is always the team that gets the 1st, ‘next’ player. What I mean by that is if the teams are balanced by volume, the next player to join the lobby can only join the horde. So if it is 3 on 3, the horde get the next player, that player cannot join the humans. Odd number games are not hard to come by, so this outcome happens far too often, and may be a big factor the Horde always seem to win.

On the whole though, this is a very solid game. The 3rd person RPG style action is fun, and the type of combat varies. As you build up your base you can add new buildings which unlock new classes, such as siege weapons for the humans, and giant trolls for the horde. These unlocked classes can swing the momentum of battle and are valued as such.

The RPG element is great too. You can be the eye in the sky for your team and show them what the enemy is doing and form tactics this way. This allows the fighters to fight, and the good players will follow your commands.

At the end of the day, this is a solid game all-around. The graphics are not state-of-the-art, but are close to on par with games such as World of Warcraft. The number of effects are lower then that game, but the level of details are similar. The sound is a bit lacking, as there is not much music (if any) to speak of, and the sound effects can only be summarized as ‘generic.’ They are not awful, they get the job done, but that is about it.

This game is in fact free, however, and as such is perhaps the greatest freeware game out there. If you have something else, let me know, I’d love to take a look at it.

Until next time, peace

Savage 2 Review Scores