Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising

Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising E3 2005 Hands-On Impressions

Developer Perpetual Entertainment was on hand at E3 2005, giving the media a look at its upcoming MMO role-playing game, Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising. Gods & Heroes looks to be very much a traditional MMO game in several senses, letting players create a unique avatar based on one of several classes and quest through a large-scale, open world (in this case, modeled after the ancient Roman world). However, there are some specific qualities that stand out about this game, including its decidedly strategy-focused combat model, as well as its god devotion system. Members of the team (including the head of the project, former Diablo II lead designer Stieg Hedlund) were able to give us a lengthy and detailed look at the game's many mechanics, and we came away intrigued by our experience.

When you first boot up Gods & Heroes, you'll begin by creating your character. Little of the final in-game character creation interface was in the demo version we saw, but we still got to look at all the creation features you can play around with. The game features a very detailed facial editing system, which lets you alter everything from eye design to facial symmetry. Once you've got an appearance, you'll then choose a character class. There will be six in the game, including rogue, warrior, scout, priest, healer, and gladiator. The specifics on how each class is unique from the others was not made extremely clear, though some are pretty obvious, such as the difference between a warrior and a priest. Once you're actually in the game, you'll begin in something of a private instance. Regardless of what class you choose, the storyline starts similarly (though not exactly the same). You'll find yourself in a dire situation, either as a slave or something similarly unpleasant. You'll have to quest your way out of this situation, and once you do, you'll be free to explore the world of Rome that Perpetual has created.

Gods & Heroes takes place loosely around 300 BC, though the developers haven't exactly gone out of their way to be historically accurate, simply for the sake of being able to add things in that they want, such as the Roman Coliseum, which wasn't built until many years later. The world of the game spreads across several different territories, not the least of which is Rome itself. You'll also work through several other areas, occupied by opposing forces, such as the Greeks, and even find your way to Mount Olympus and Hades. As this will be a game based heavily within Roman mythology, you can expect all sorts of creatures to appear, including skeletal warriors, voltas, gorgons, furies, gigantes, cyclopes, and centaurs. The Roman gods will also play heavily into the experience, as at the beginning of the game, you'll have to choose a specific god to follow. Each god provides unique powers and special abilities to your character, all of which are entirely different from one another. While a degree of benefit can be gained from matching up some god powers to your character class, Perpetual seems more focused on making the play experience balanced, no matter what class or god you choose.

Combat is going to be a big part of Gods & Heroes, and the game actually looks to feature a system that differentiates itself from the typical MMO combat fare. As you might expect, the majority of the combat is quest-based, though you'll still encounter groups of enemies just by wandering around the world. The quest system itself largely resembles that of World of Warcraft, and considering how easy that system was, that's certainly welcome. When you're engaged with an enemy, you'll still use basic button commands to pull off specific attacks and otherwise just duke it out with an opposing character, but what's cool is how the combat itself looks. The combat demos we saw showed off a wide variety of attack and hit animations that looked specifically tailored to whatever weapons and shields each character was holding. If a character blocked a sword hit, it specifically showed that. If a swordfighter is going up against an axe-wielder, then you'll see a different fight than if that swordfighter was fighting a character wielding a pair of small blades. The death animations will also be much more involved here, with brutal stabs and cuts that actually show characters getting run through with the weapon that felled them.

Another cool aspect of the combat system is its scale. Perpetual really wanted to get into the idea of the sorts of large-scale battles you'd see in Roman epics, so to do this, they've installed a sort of non-player character unit system that allows you to bring in up to four AI-controlled soldiers to any battle you choose. As you play, your level will help to earn you the respect of NPC soldiers and creatures, and as time goes by, you'll be able to recruit them to your camp. You can recruit anything from a sword-specialized Roman warrior to a big, burly minotaur, making for a nice variety in soldier types. Each specific type of NPC lends itself to melee combat, ranged attacks, and so on, so you can design certain types of battle formations that reflect the types of soldiers you choose to bring into battle and best utilize their strengths. This will be a required element of many quests, as several enemy NPCs will travel with their own bodyguards, and these types of soldier bodyguards cannot be pulled individually. You can, however, still group up with other players if you're traveling with an NPC posse, and so can those you group with, meaning you can get some sizable armies together when necessary.

The whole NPC minion portion of the game also plays into Gods & Heroes' player housing system. Essentially, every player in the game will be assigned a camp, which predictably starts out fairly barren, with only a couple of tents and a small campfire. However, as you progress, you'll be able to buy more for your camp, including more lavish set pieces, tents, and what have you. You'll also be able to store all of your allied minions in your camp, and recruit them for battles simply by coming back there and selecting which units you want to fall in line with you.

Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising looks like it could be a wholly enjoyable offering to the MMO market when it ships later this year. It seems to be blending just enough time-tested elements from games like World of Warcraft with its strategically minded combat and specialized setting and theme, and if Perpetual has its way, it should come together into an MMORPG the likes of which could rank up with the better ones currently on the market. While the demo we saw still had some bugs and rough edges, we like the potential of this game and look forward to getting our hands on it again.

Gamespot