I've been spazzing about it in the chat for days, so I figured I'd dump out my opinions here.
Rise of Legends is a fantasy setting game somewhat based on the Rise of Nations engine. Comparing it's race style to starcraft is not too off base, and that's high praise from me. By nessecity, all the buildings are somewhat similar, but the units are not a simple changetype from one race to the next, you really have an interesting time figureing out the best way to beat an opponent's choice.
The game style itself is different and interesting to me, it's all about momentum, but you have to make wise choices too. You generally start with a single city, a few units, and a mine. Resource collection is a constant flowing income from inexhaustible patches like a Total Annihilation game, but spent whole like in most strategy games. A city can have 'districts' added to it, which are basically buildings that have to be attached to a city, and have an effect on how much resource you can pull in, or how many units you can have, etc. The real key is that there are a ton of neutural cities and other sites on the map, and by conquering or buying them out, you gain territory and units and (in the case of cities) the ability to build more districts cheaper. Raiding these from your opponent becomes a very good way to turn the momentum in your favor if you seem to be loseing a central struggle. Each race's non city buildings are somewhat unique, but basically easy to figure out, typically a ground air and seige building each, and a couple of research or defense structures.
Speaking of races, here's the fun stuff:
The Vinci: Inspired by something between DiVinci's drawing's of screw turning helicopters and steampunk robotics, these guys rely on a bizzare mix of clockwork, steam driven, and generally industrial feeling units. They start strong, and play very traditionally, required to turtle within their own borders if they have to fight hard for territory, they're the least effective at raiding. While they start powerfully, it's hard to keep them upgraded long term against the other races, due to lack of a strong mid game. They go right from little barracks stuff to the giant expensive tanks and missle launching bombers. A good mix of direct damage hero abilities really helps. Their ultimate unit (said to have the power of a whole army, but it's basically just like a fully upgraded hero if you ask me) is the Land Leviathan, a giant clockwork spider with drill arms and a massive missile launcher. It helps counter their weak raiding like no other with the ability to dig to anywhere on the map with line of site.
The Alin: Inspired by the whole Arabian Nights desert mythology and mysticism, these guys definitely have the edge on numbers, but are somewhat weaker individually (Zerg mab?). They have three unit types, Sand, Fire, and Glass. It's roughly analogous to land/air/seige, but doesn't always play that way. Early game is always a strugle, but summonin a hero quickly sure helps. Mid game, when the flame units come into their own and the basic barracks footmen can be upgrade to a ranged attack, they can whomp anybody. They have a real edge on raiding as any of their production circles can be built wherever you can see. Their Ultimate unit is the Glass Dragon, which I don't have a lot of experience with, but apperently it can dish the punishment like others.
The Cuotal: Inspired supposedly by Chariot of the Gods, but really it looks more like Stargate, these guys are Mayan's who had aliens crash land on em and integrate supertechnology into their stone age society. Their buildings have that sort of Total Annihilation wireframe nanotech going on, which is fun to watch. They also have a couple of massive differences from the other two races. One, instead of collecting wealth, they generate energy. They have reactor districts instead of trade districts, and don't have to spend any more on caravans (which can possible be shot down). The downside to not tradeing is that they cannot buy neutural sites, so instead they have the ability to massively subjigate them, instantly making the site and a few surviving troops around it yours for a mineral cost instead of the secondary wealth/energy. It makes it a different dynamic, because you have to gage if its worth that price or if you should spend hte same minerals just on troops. On the upside you can possibly conquer a second city in the first 15 seconds of the game! Unitwise, these guys are strong but expensive (protoss anybody..?) They're somewhat strong throughout, but toward late game, if they get the sphere units out, just forget it. The Death Sphere, fully upgraded, can just walk all over infantry, leveling a whole army in seconds, like a hero ability. Their ultimate unit is the City of Vengeance, which is basically just a 'forget it' moment unless you have your own super unit as well as a good army.
So in conclusion,
The good:
unique races, well ballanced, multiplayer works nicely and is fun, single player campaign is serviceable., momentum based 'dominance' system works far better than I thought it would. Neutural site aspect works well too.
The bad:
slowdown happens when a big city collapses, even on my beast of a machine. I think there are some setting I could turn down to use a pre-rendered animation instead of a physics based collapse, but man. Multiplayer interface still not on par with say, battle.net. Not a lot to really care about in single player and the campaign ending screams 'expansion in Q1 2007'
The ugly:
Microsoft fucking Games is on the warpath to make sure new games like this won't fucking run on anything but windows fucking XP, and soon fucking Vista. I hope this sentance has conveyed how strongly I feel about this. With a nice patch on gameburnworld and a forum trick for forceing the install, I have it working just fine on 2K, but you can forget about it on 98/NT/ME/any Mac.
Final score 4/5 for the game,
3.5/5 if you're with me on the M$ monopoly whoreing.
