| Author | Review |
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OfficerBarbrady
103,759
TA Score for this game: 1,731
Posted on 13 July 11 at 21:51, Edited on 29 September 11 at 05:09 |
This review has 16 positive votes and 4 negative votes. Please log in to vote. |
Stormrise is an RTS published by SEGA and developed by The Creative Assembly, who also developed Viking: Battle for Asgard. Viking was a decent game, but Stormrise? Not so much. It's a little entertaining in the first few missions, but then it just gets tedious as the difficulty makes a huge jump.
Gameplay: 4/10
If you are unsure exactly what an RTS is, it is a game where you are the commander of an army and you must spawn troops to complete the ovjective. Other notable RTS games are Starcraft, Brutal Legend, and RUSE. One of the things that seperates this game from the other RTS games is the "Whip Select" feature. This lets you switch from unit to unit extremely fast. It works just fine when you have about 5 units spread out across the map, but when you get a huge army together it gets extrememly difficult to select specific units. It isn't exactly innovative, but it is different. There are 2 different factions you can choose from: the Echelon(Humans) or the Sai(Aliens). Each has its own unique units and each unit has its own unique abilities. Commanding your units can be a huge pain. Not only is it hard to select specific units, but the units sometimes have a mind of their own. You would tell them to travel to certain place and instead they go into a different direction or start attacking something. It is always good to have a group of units together because one unit cant do its job right.
Graphics/Visuals: 5/10
The graphics in this game are sub-par. From a quick glance they look pretty good, but the closer you get to the characters the more you can see the blocky textures. The environment is done decently. It feels like it's in a post-apocalyptic time. Character design is done fairly well for the most part. I particularily like the design for some of the Sai units like the Rift Worm and the Matriarch. However the Echelon units arent that great looking. The only interesting ones are the Stalker and the Eclipse.
Single Player: 6/10
The single player campaign is fun for the first mission or so, then it gets annoying and tedious. The jump in difficulty from mission to mission is just ridiculous. There is a reason the ratio for beating the campaign on Hard is so high. Aside from the campaign, you can face the AI in skirmish matches. These are even more difficult because there is no objective that you must complete in order to win the match. Most RTS games have it so when you destroy the opponents base, you win. Well in this game there is no base to destroy. Sometimes when the opponent defeats your commander that means you lose. Other times the match keeps going even without your commander.
Multiplayer: 3/10
The multiplayer plays the same as skirmish. There are still the same issues with single player, except now you can add online lag into the mix. The online is completely dead now though, but I am guessing at launch it had a few people. You will need to boost the online achievements.
Story: 2/10
The story is very boring. It involves aliens taking over the world or something and them having to wake you up from some hibernation in some pod. Apparently you also got freaky with one of the alien chicks one time and you never called her again. No, I am not kidding. That is actually part of the story. The character development is done ok. You most likely wont get emotionally attached to any characters throughout the story.
Achievements: 6/10
I guess this is a decent achievement list. It encourages you to experience all that the game has to offer, if not more than you would want to experience. The online achievements will need to be boosted seeing as there is nobody online anymore. You get atleast one achievement each mission in the story. There are quite a few achievements tied to certain units. These include killing a certain ammount, getting a certain ammount of kills, or using the units ability. Most of the achievements are not very hard, but the story ones definitely are.
Gameplay: 4/10
Graphics/Visuals: 5/10
Singleplayer: 6/10
Multiplayer: 3/10
Story: 2/10
Achievements: 6/10
Overall: 26/60
This game is not really that great. Its good if you want to get your TA ratio up, but its not good for much else. It isnt the worst game out there, but it certainly is not the best.
If you leave a negative, please let it be because you didnt like the quality of my review, not my opinions on the game.
If you enjoy Stormrise, you might also enjoy:
Brutal Legend
R.U.S.E.
Halo Wars
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MFMegazerox
122,147
TA Score for this game: 3,970
Posted on 23 July 12 at 14:49, Edited on 09 November 12 at 14:28 |
This review has 10 positive votes and 1 negative vote. Please log in to vote. |
Stormrise is a real time strategy title developed by The Creative Assembly. The Creative Assembly is best known for their Total War series. With such a quality developer behind the game, Stormrise must be an overlooked masterpiece, right?
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Story Score: 2 out of 10
Premise
I find it difficult to write this section because I myself don't even truly understand the story, and I have played through all of it. However, I will do my best to decipher the plot from this train wreck. A while before the game begins, there was a worldwide disaster (nuclear bombs?) that destroyed most of the Earth. It caused everyone to mutate except the military, who were kept safe in bunkers while in cryogenic sleep.
Most of the Echelon (the military) in cryogenic sleep were woken up after some time, and they encountered the Sai. The Sai are the mutated civilians that survived outside of the bunkers. They lived in peace with the each other until the Sai arbitrarily declared war on the Echelon. The Echelon then decide after years of war that they will awaken a hero (the protagonist) that was left in cryogenic sleep and was never woken for no obvious reason.
When he is woken, he is taken to a base for training. This is where the game begins.
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Main plot WARNING: contains minor structural spoilers (ie:"there will be a plot twist so and so missions in)
The story is made up of three acts, each consisting of four missions. At the end of each act, the story takes a plot twist. The first plot twist is very predictable. The next will be most likely unforeseen by the player. The motivations that drive these plot twists are terrible. The second twist's motivation was so awful it caused me to burst out laughing. In fact, that is the only thing I remember fondly of the game's story.
Besides the bemusing second plot twist, you will care nothing for story. In missions 1 - 4, I didn't even understand what the purpose of the mission even was or how I got there, not to mention all of the nitpicky things I can think of for every mission. But you won't even really care, because you won't care about the characters or the overarching plot.
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Characters
All of the characters have anywhere from next to no personality to absolutely no personality. The motivations that drive them (often none) are very fickle and they will constantly change what they do and why they do it. You will find yourself hating everyone because either you don't even understand what they are doing or they are just simple dicks and try to screw others over whenever they can.
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In conclusion, the story is nonsensical and you will have absolutely no attachment to any of it. The only bright spot is if you are lighthearted you may laugh at the shear awfulness of the story.
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Gameplay Score: 1.5/10
The gameplay is the most important aspect of any real time strategy game. Unfortunately, Stormrise fails to deliver entertaining gameplay on almost every level.
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Controls
Stormrise's biggest problem is located here. The controls for this game have to be the worst I have ever seen. Not just in a real time strategy game, but in any game, ever! The developers wished to make the interface easier. To do this they implemented the "whip select" system. The theory was that the biggest problem with console RTS playing was the lack of hot keys. Whip select would
act a substitute for hot keys.
Whip select allows you to select units and move to a perspective above and behind them by holding the right analog stick in their direction and selecting their symbol. The problem is, this works very poorly and is mostly nonfunctional when you start making progress in a mission. When the mission is almost over, for example, you may wish to send units behind your currently selected unit forward. However, using whip select you will likely select a turret that is on the other side of the map and you will keep on trying to get back to the unit you want unsuccessfully. Whip select achieves the exact opposite of what it was created for. It doesn't just make the console RTS controls worse, it makes them unbearable.
Admittedly, they tried to remedy this by adding an alternate way to command units. By selecting X on the unit's icon and tapping A somewhere, you can move the unit that way. This is much better than whip select. In fact, it becomes the only real way to command your units. However, it is still clunky and at times you are still forced to used whip select to get to a unit close enough to command using this way. All in all, this clunky method only goes to prove how much better the traditional way is than what Stormrise produces.
Apparently, the designers thought it a good idea to keep "secret" controls since a vital way the game functions isn't ever told to the player. What I am referring to is what other RTSs use spawn flags for. In this game, while you have selected a spawn point, your units will automatically run to wherever the cursor was located when you selected the spawn option for that unit. It isn't where it is when they spawn, but where it was when you chose to spawn them. You will be angrily wondering why most of your units are running suicidally into the enemy forces as they spawn until you Google something like "Why are my units in Stormrise retarded?" and you learn why.
Most RTSs provide a way to select all units and/or all units on screen. Not Stormrise! In Stormrise you must be content with grouping units by three. Even the grouping is clunky and awkward.. You are forced to hold down LB and hit A and the closest units will automatically be grouped. To disband the group you must hold LB and whip select a singular unit and give that unit a command to get the unit will leave to group. You must re-select the group and do that again to disband the entire group. The formation of groups takes minutes to do if you have the max number of units (usually required to make an attack). Even excluding the awkwardness it still forces the player to send units one at a time, making attacks an inconsistent line of units.
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Core Experience
Even without the awful awkward and sometimes downright confusing controls, the core experience itself isn't anything special. In fact, it is pretty boring and only has one consistent strategy: spam the cheapest unit; move up; take and fully upgrade a turret. Spam the cheapest unit; move up; take and fully upgrade a turret. This is what it boils down to. This, and the waiting to gather the resources required to spam the unit. Waiting and spamming is the focus of the game.
The reason this strategy works so well is that the enemies only ever attack with three units at a time. This isn't enough to get past any except the weakest of your turrets. Also they never rebuild the units they had defending an area. Instead they will just continue to send units to commit suicidal attacks at your turrets. The only real difficulty in the game is derived either from the player's impatience or the awful controls.
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In short, the gameplay is nothing short of awful. The controls have to be one of the worst, if not the worst, on the Xbox 360 and the gameplay itself is uninteresting, boring, and nonstrategic. Any strategy game that doesn't involve much strategy is inherently flawed.
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Achievements NOTE: This doesn't have any bearing on my final rating of the game. It only bears mention because this is an achievement site and achievements are an important factor for many on whether they will buy the game or not
The achievements in this game aren't hard. In fact, I presume the reason this game has the TA ratio it does is purely because of it's awfulness. The single player has an achievement for either completing a side goal or a main goal for every mission in the game (including the tutorial). Most of these aren't very out of the way, excluding a couple. But even the out of the way ones are still very doable. There is an achievement for completing Act I, Act II, for completing the game on easy or medium, and one for completing it on hard. You will have to complete the campaign twice because the achievements aren't stackable. There is an achievement for beating the AI on every skirmish match.
The rest of the achievements can be gotten within a dozen hours or so of boosting for the online achievements. The online is dead, so boosting is a must if you wish to get all of the achievements.
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Conclusion Score: 2 out of 10
Stormrise is a poorly made game that only worsened the problem it wished to solve. With awful controls, a laughable nonsensical story, and boring nonstrategic core gameplay, Stormrise is a game you will wish to avoid like the plague.
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Capta1n0bvious3
108,807
TA Score for this game: 3,970
Posted on 03 March 13 at 15:26, Edited on 06 March 13 at 14:04 |
This review has 9 positive votes and 1 negative vote. Please log in to vote. |
This is my first ( and maybe only) review so bear that in mind.
I thought I'd add it to the others cause I don't think the game is nearly as bad as the others say.
Still this is only my opinion and I might be the only one who thinks this.
Also I tried to make this spoiler free. If you think there are spoilers please post in the comments.
Anyway......
Storyline
The game starts out with a long cut scene where mankind has ruined the planets environment and, after an experiment to try to return the planet to a better state fails catastrophically many on the planet escape underground.
This catastrophe is referred to only as " the Event"
However, not everyone can fit in the underground complexes, only a privileged few.
The rest of the population is forced to attempt to survive on the surface.
They aren't happy.....
Those housed underground were put in cryogenic Stasis chambers for a finite time and are now awakened and returning to the surface to face their unhappy brethren.
The privileged few. are back to reclaim their planets ruler ship.......
Or so it seems.
There are many plot twists and it took me both playthroughs in order to get the whole story straight.
I liked it.
I'd give it a 7/10.
Gameplay
OK, there's a reason that the game has a high ratio, but I don't think it's earned.
Stormrise is a RTS and as such, in order to fight you need resources in order to build an army.that's pretty common in RTS games.
Where Stormrise differs most is that: in many RTS games you have a birds eye to view the battle field, where you have a clear vision of where to send your army.
Not in Stormrise.
Instead you are instead given a battlefield view . Meaning if your foot soldiers are attempting to get anywhere you kind of have to hand walk them there from their point of view if there is no icon for your objective.( Meaning if you need them to go up a hill and around a corner, they can't see that far so you have to guide them through multiple clicks instead of just 1 with an above view) This is common in this game.
This makes it hard.
Then, since in many RTS games including this, the easiest way to win the objectives is by overwhelming force. However, in Stormrise, you can only group units in groups of 3.
So lets say you have 24 units of soldiers that you want to send in to capture an objective. You must make 8 groups of 3 and send them each separately. This is a common occurrence in this game.
This makes it harder.
And finally, I think the thing that makes people put the game away is called "Whip Select"
To switch between groups of units you either hold or flick the right stick in the direction of the unit in question. This is called "Whip Select".
This is a very inexact way of doing things.
Sometimes instead of going to the group you wish to, you end up going to a place way across the map.
This can be very frustrating at times...............
There are times when you have access to aircraft where it's easier to shuttle your army, but not many.
Still with all this, with a little patience this game really isn't hard.
Even on hard with the right strategy this missions are very straight forward. If you find yourself having a hard time doing a mission a certain way, step back, re-evaluate your strategy and try a new approach.
Having said all the drawbacks about this game, if this game didn't have them, the game would be way too easy. It's not hard anyway, but it wouldn't even be a challenge.
And I must add that I certainly am not an expert RTS player. If you are good, you will most likely beat me every time.
I'd give the gameplay about an 8 (WAAAIIIIITTTTTTTTT), but that is because I really like the game.
If I were to give a more dispassionate evaluation, it's probably more of a 5-6/10.
Oh there's 1 thing I'd like to add to gameplay. There are a lot of cutscenes and most of them you can't skip. So I thought you might want to know before starting this game.
Skirmish and Multiplayer
Skirmish is basically you playing the AI in a multiplayer type game. It's actually not bad if you like this game.
Really no one plays this game at all online so you will need a boosting partner or a second copy and 2 gold accounts if you want the multiplayer achievements. There are a total of 8 MP achievements and realistically to get another 3 more, you'll have to get them boosting too.
I'm not going to rate this section because if you like the game, and you like going up against the AI in this type of game, you'll like it like I do, if not, then you won't.
And no online pretty much negates how good the MP could be.
Achievements
That's why we're here right?
Well that and to have some fun too.
The achievements aren't hard at all. The only thing you should note is not to switch between skirmish and story when playing on hard. Somehow this resets the difficulty. I had to replay the game on hard up to mission 10 out of a total of 12 because of this.
Still even doing that, I got 1000/1000 in about 35 hours tops.
The only long grind is winning 99 Ranked games. You can win a game on a small map in about a minute or less, then get a new game going in about another minute so if you figure 2 minutes total, 99 games would be just under 200 minutes each. So about 7 hours for you and your partner.
Many of the achievements like killing Stalkers and using a certain ability can be done in story mode, but some are easier and faster in MP with a partner like attacking the Cloaked Specters and so forth.
So you'd realistically have 11 MP achievements, 31 can be done in the story, and you have to beat the AI on all 10 skirmish maps on any difficulty.
In fact, in my opinion, this is the easiest game with a ratio above 3 to complete. You only need a little patience and a boosting partner.
I'd give the achievements a 9/10.
In conclusion, I'd give the game and 8/10, but that's cause I liked it a lot.
A more dispassionate rating would more likely by 6/10.
I know many would disagree, but I'm leaving it at 4 stars.
I'm not expecting many positive votes, but I thought This game deserves at least 1 review from someone that likes the game.
In no way am I criticizing the other reviewers, just adding my view.
Thanks for reading.
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MattiasAnderson
74,882
TA Score for this game: 2,398
Posted on 27 March 13 at 11:24, Edited on 27 March 13 at 11:25 |
This review has 7 positive votes and 2 negative votes. Please log in to vote. |
Review # 5 - Stormrise
The game that is a disgrace to the gaming world!
Stormrise is a strategy game publiced from Sega that many people probably have never heard of. And probably for good reasons too. I actually do think that Sega is embarassed that they once publiced this game.
In the game you controll a hero that must survive, if your hero dies you have to restart from your latest checkpoint. You build armies and try to controll them as you move throughout a map. Your goal is to capture so called nods and then upgrade them to turrets and make it give you more resources. Rinse and repeat throughout the whole game that has 12 missions. Every mission takes very long time to finish. The main reason it takes forever to beat this game is that it has the worst controll I have ever witnessed in any game I have ever played in my entire life.
When you have a unit, you press LT to put them together with another unit so its stronger. You can have up to 3 units together. Now you would like to build up an army to attack with. However when you attack you click on the marker you want to attack. But then you most of the times need to use more than just one 3 unit army and to do that you have to use the right stick and aim carefully so a big long line hits the other unit. And the other unit can actually be in a completely different place on the map. And its so easy to miss the unit you want to highlight, especially if it is already moving. Then you go back and fourth to the wrong units.While trying to get to the other unit the first unit is already dead.
Not only this, when you sometimes move a unit to attack a target they dont move at all. They just stand still because there is another unit blocking the way. And sometimes you cant move that one as well. And the units responds very slow as well.
I would not say that this is a strategy game, there is not much strategy to use in this game to increase your chances. You just build up a big army and try to make them attack without failing to miss targeting your units.
And the story of the game doesnt make sense at all, it seems like something that a random kid could have made.
The Graphics for the game:
Very boring and not very nice. Far away from anything spectacular.- 1/6
Music:
There is mostly only sound effects but sometimes there is a bit of an action music when you are attacking but always the same. Nothing good here at all - 1/6
Achievements: (The more anoying acheivements = lower score)
There is one online achievement were you have to play the campaign first to be able to get it. You dont have to complete the whole game but aproximately halfway throughout the story you have without any notification unlocked atleast one equipment for each slot for one of the two teams you can use in the multiplayer. You go to a meny and equip it and then win 10 times with that team. But why dont the game let you know when you have got a new equipment? Then there is an achievement were you have to win 99 times. Takes about 8-10 hours to boost all the online achievements. Then the campaign achievements are extremely boring and you got to beat the game twice. - 1/6
Good game?
One of the worst game I have ever played in my entire life and right now the worst xbox game I have ever played - 0/6
Total points for Stormrise 3/24
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redlink13
85,107 
TA Score for this game: 954
Posted on 27 January 11 at 12:36, Edited on 28 January 11 at 07:33 |
This review has 13 positive votes and 9 negative votes. Please log in to vote. |
This is my first review so bear with me...
Stormrise, RTS (real time strategy)
Gameplay
First off Stormrise is based in a post-apocalyptic war, between the echelon and the sai, the echelon are the humans who survived the apocalypse which was a massive storm which basically wiped billions of people off of the earth, the sai are the mutant survivors fighting to be equal with the echelon.
You play as Cmmdr. Geary a man who wakes up in a cryo tube, you go straight into battle with your awesome mech suit, but it isn't good it can die pretty fast if you go check on different squads.
At a glance the game looks mildly interesting, but when you actually play the game, you will either hate it or love it, to switch between squads you tilt the right stick, this actually got on my nerves as you are supposed to 'whip select' between alot of squads and usually ends up with the wrong one and does get frustrating.
But there are some good points to it, when you overcome the harsh brutality of the game and start 'pwning some newbs' it is enjoyable but that can change as hundreds of soldiers will be taken out in a matter of seconds.
As far as the missions go i am on mission 9 and stuck, i have tried every possible combination, but i was enjoying myself during act 2, and got about 300gs in it.
For the gameplay i will rate it as;
5/10
Due to the fact the game is hard on easy and the whip select just ruined it, although the mini battles between squads is awesome so i chose 5/10
Graphics
This game has some amazing visuals, such as the seas and the skies and gives the game a relaxing feel, but the characters seem a bit rushed and slightly puts me off, but as for 2009 they won't fit in, as the release of Call of Duty : Modern Warfare 2 and Halo 3 : ODST, the comparison for graphics just gets crushed by Final Fantasy : XIII, one of '09s most visually amazing games.
For the graphics i rate it as;
7/10
The Graphics for the game is ok, but lacks that feel to it, to make it unique
Multiplayer
Assuming anyone is online for this, it is ok i guess but the length of the matches seem like a massive slog, from waiting for resources to generate and moving units, in my opinion the multiplayer is terrible, the same goes for skirmish (Playing against AI's) as you don't know where the enemy base is situated.
For the multiplayer i rate it as;
2/10
For the reason it is horrible, but it isn't as laggy as a game like Halo 3 which suffers from slight lagg.
Storyline
Well at first the storyline makes no sense and won't through the majority of the game, but the most that i understood was pretty cool as how the storyline progresses.
For the storyline i rate it as;
4/10
For being confusing and hard to keep up with.
Overall
Gameplay - 5/10
Graphics - 7/10
Multiplayer - 2/10
Storyline - 4/10
Which gives us an overall score of;
4.5/10
TA - 2.25/5
This game isn't worth buying especially if you have a temper or a high tendancy to get wound up. |