In a post-apocalyptic future, the technologies for war have been lost and forgotten. Humans roam Newerth (new-earth) as a tribal legion, battling against a vicious beast horde, which have had years of oppression to fuel their hatred of humanity. These two factions have sworn to fight each other to extinction in a war for resources, survival, and dominance.

This fast-paced multiplayer game is an extremely ambitious title from S2 Games. It is half first-person shooter and half real-time strategy. In Action mode, the player runs across rolling plains as a warrior, killing all enemies who get in your way, and guided by your Commander. In Commander mode, you view the world through the traditional overhead RTS view and oversee all construction, research, and tactics. In the tradition of games like Tribes 2, Savage is dedicated specifically to multiplayer, with no computer-controlled units outside of the workers who perform heavy labor such as construction and resource collecting. The rest are human controlled. A good game will involve six to ten people, but there is no way to practice this game except to jump right in to playing it. There is no single player or practice mode for players to become accustomed to the controls or learn maps. So, every new player has to go through a trial by fire in order to become good. This is especially difficult for the Commander, who needs to coordinate an army that might or might not follow orders.

Things are pretty straightforward in Action mode. You have a limited inventory of five items, the first being your melee weapon and the second being your ranged weapon. You cannot carry multiple weapons, and ammunition capacity is relatively low. It is likely that players will often have to resort to sword fighting (which switches you to a third person view), since it does more damage, and most of the guns are pretty weak. Humans rely on reviving forgotten technology and will gain ranged weapons early on. Beasts have the advantage in hand-to-hand combat situations and tap into magical forces for ranged attacks. Action players can also assist the Commander in other ways by helping in construction or repair (slashing at a friendly building) or harvesting resources (more slashing). You can also level up your character by killing enemies and local wildlife, which will add to your strength, armor, and stamina. This is also the only way for your character to make money to purchase items, higher warrior classes, and advanced weapons. Sure, it may seem incredibly silly to see money spilling out of what looks like an ostrich-chicken, but income is income! I should mention that these creatures do significant damage when they fight back, and they always respawn. Orders from the Commander come in the form of an audible "Go here," or "Attack this," with a target put on your destination.

Being the Commander requires quick thinking and good judgment. The technologies that the Commander researches will become available to players in Action mode. Commanders can also reward outstanding players by promoting them, which puts a giant flag on their back, and enables it to heal units standing nearby. Other rewards include giving gold and granting purchase requests so that weapons will come out of the Commander's fund instead of the Action player's own pocket. Without a practice mode, the Commander is put under a huge disadvantage, because there is no way to practice being one except through an actual game. There is also no observation mode for Commanders. Players can vote to remove a Commander from office, but in the middle of battle, the process is often more trouble than it's worth. The RTS screen mode is pretty lackluster, with no extra visuals than what you need. This is striking difference when compared to how buildings and grassy fields look in Action mode.

Winning the game means destroying the enemy's command center, which requires intense teamwork among all players. However, the communications leaves a lot to be desired. Yes, there are preset audio messages like "follow me," but all typed messages are confined to a little box on the bottom left hand corner of the screen. Voice chat would have been an incredibly useful addition to this game. That is just the start. Even though S2 Games has done an exceptional job on an obviously complex game, it is difficult to overlook some its shortcomings. There are no customizable options available in the game, like cutting the respawn time from twenty seconds to ten seconds, except through designing your own mods. There are no varying modes of play; destroying the command center is the only option. There are only ten warrior classes (five for each side), which essentially measure out to small, medium, and large, and the rest are slow-moving artillery. Although there is a tech tree, there really isn't that much research to be done. There are a small handful of weapons, and the rest are upgrades from the base versions. On the Human side, it often seems like the ranged weapons are dreadfully underpowered unless you purchase from the final weapon tier. Couple this with the fact that the advanced guns don't carry much ammo, and the Beast Horde gains a significant advantage because they are best at melee. This is slightly offset by the fact that Humans' ability to block attacks, but not much since beasts are generally faster and heartier.

Yet, the flaws can be easily overlooked, especially when considering the scope of this game. Savage is a very worthwhile effort to bring together the two genres that PC gaming does best. Teamwork will come together after playing a few times, and so will skill. Games are very frenetic, and although it can be difficult to distinguish friends from foes, and AI workers can be unresponsive, this is a title that keeps you coming back.

Our Final ScoreOK

What did you think of this game? Post Your Own Review