Stormrise - A Poor RTS Title Rife with Problems

2009-06-25

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The Good Parts of Stormrise (2 out of 5)

Stormrise has excellent graphics with bright colors and an engaging look that will entertain you and make your eyes smile.

Playing the mutant Sai race in the multiplayer or skirmish modes is the best part of this game, but in the campaign the entertainment fades away.

The Bad Parts of Stormrise (1 out of 5)

What happened to the working keyboard and mouse controls used for PC RTS titles we have already seen? Why did they create broken ones that were originally made for game pads, and then put them in a PC game? This hardly innovative or new “whip” unit-selection control system should have been left where they found it, and makes the game almost unplayable.

The Graphics of Stormrise (2 out of 5)

Stormrise ships with above average graphical presentation with nice visual textures and pretty good detail in most of the environments. There are a few low points in the presentation, as none of the units have any visual-personality, and they lack a unique look; something about them reminds me of past RTS ideas.

The special effects lack any explosiveness; they’re boring visually, and didn’t inspire my eyes to any great feats of gymnastics. The lighting and shadows are good, the colors are bright enough, but every unit kind of blends into the environments and you can occasionally lose them on the screen.

The animations were a little jerky at times (even on my Gamer Paladin F875, which isn’t a good sign), but this only happened occasionally. My gaming computer didn’t suffer any severe frame rate problems; it did slow down occasionally when the action was intense, but it didn’t affect the gameplay much.

Sounds in Stormrise (3 out of 5)

The orchestrated sound track of Stormrise is the best part of this title, with heavy rock tunes that can never make up for the problems with the control scheme, but it has nice sound that entertains.

The sound effects are above average, they weren’t very unique (too many similarities from one sound to another), but for the most part they helped improve the game.

Playability of Stormrise (1 out of 5)

Stormrise is almost unplayable as a game, and thats a major problem. The control scheme is totally useless and frustrates you, rather than allowing you to be entertained and actually play the game.

The included campaign mode might be fun if the control system worked correctly, but we’re never going to know with this game. The control scheme also made the multiplayer and skirmish modes frustrating at times, but less so as the controls seemed to work better in these modes.

The Final Word on Stormrise (2 out of 5)

Stormrise’s problem with its control system kills it as a worththile game, and I don’t recommend it for anybody. They should have fixed the control system before releasing this game and I am wondering what happened during the testing phase. Why didn’t they notice the unusable control system problems? This developer actually made Empire: Total War and when you compare it to this effort, you might think they really had a bad day.