Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Phenomic
Minimum Requirements: Windows XP (SP2) or Vista, 1.8 ghz CPU, 512 mb RAM (XP)/2 gb (Vista), 4X DVD drive, 7 gb hard-drive space, DirectX 9.0c-compatible video and sound cards
Genre: RPG
Release date: Available Now

Patience, they say, is a virtue. But from an early age, patience is something that most of us are sadly lacking. This is true about most aspects of life, but especially in gaming. How many of us have popped a new game into our machine of choice, left the instruction manual in the box, skipped the tutorials (which, as we all know, are for noobs) and jumped straight into a new game—only to give up after having our asses kicked unrelentingly for an hour? Electronic Arts and developer Phenomic’s RPG BattleForge is one such game, but don’t fall for the trap, lest you spend more time cursing the game than you do enjoying it.

BattleForge‘s story is pure fantasy RPG pulp. In the early days of Earth, giants ruled the land, only to be driven underground by determined human armies. The gods were pleased, so they turned some of the humans into Skylords, mortals imbued with godlike powers over the elements. But in time, the gods grew tired of Earth and abandoned it, taking the light of the sun with them and forcing the humans to join the giants in the caves. Desperate to return to the surface, the humans offered all of their wealth to the giants, who promised to restore the sun’s light in return. But when the humans ascended from the caves, they found a world overrun with hideously deformed creatures. Into this chaos a single human hero strode, vowing to find the gods and bring them back.

The first thing you notice about BattleForge is how long it takes to actually start playing. Once the game is installed, you have to create an account with EA (an Internet connection is required to play, not just to authenticate your copy), then you wait while the software is patched to the most recent version. This can take a really long time (anyone who’s waited a few months to play a new MMO will know the feeling). After patching comes character creation, which is the fastest part of the process; you pick a name and an icon for your hero and you’re done (assuming you don’t spend 15 minutes trying to find a moniker that someone else has already claimed). Now all you need to do is let a fellow Skylord guide you through the multi-part tutorial and you’re ready to start conquering the world.

BattleForge is a card-based game, similar to Magic: The Gathering. Once the tutorial is completed, you begin with four sets of cards, each set tied to the game’s four elements of magic: Fire, Nature, Frost and Shadow. You use the cards to summon creatures to send into battle, and to cast spells to aid them in their struggles. The story is divided into individual missions; complete one and others are unlocked. You start out in single-player scenarios, but before long you unlock missions that require either two, four or 12 players to finish. The multiplayer portions are all cooperative, but in an unusual way: each player is given their own individual objectives, frequently in totally different areas of the map than your teammates inhabit. However, if one of you fails to complete your missions, the entire team fails, so if you finish your tasks and you see a teammate getting slapped around, it’s in everybody’s best interest for you to lend a helping hand. Successfully completing the scenarios sometimes yields card upgrades, which make certain cards more powerful.

Visually, BattleForge is a feast for the eyes. Richly colored backgrounds and detailed special effects share your monitor with imaginative, almost cartoon-like character models. Excellent sound effects, such as the satisfying boom of the Eruption spell or the sounds of metal weapons clashing in battle, help to enrich the experience, and the dramatic orchestral score offers an effective musical frame for the action. And if you’ve ever complained about a game’s puny narrative, you’ll really appreciate the time and effort that went into BattleForge‘s amazingly deep story. But for all of the game’s technical wizardry, there are lots of problems, most glaring of which is it’s difficulty. The tutorial is helpful but not nearly as detailed as it should be, and 27 of the instruction manual’s 38 pages are filled with useless pictures of the cards. I struggled with the game’s third single-player scenario for hours until I realized that I could switch from one card deck to another, something that the tutorial failed to cover. The camera is locked into a single position and can’t be rotated, there’s no mid-level save feature (fail near the end of a mission and you’re doomed to going all the way back to the beginning), and the unit AI can be sketchy; sometimes your warriors attack the nearest enemy without orders from you, while other times they stand around and absorb punishment until they expire.

Fun means different things to different people. Generally I don’t find much enjoyment in resource management, chat windows and in-game commerce; all I want is a weapon and a villain on whom to use it. But once I figured out the basics of BattleForge, I found myself being sucked into it’s detailed plot, gorgeous graphics and entertaining (albeit repetitive) gameplay. All it takes is a little patience, some luck and a smattering of strategy and you’ll discover a deep, finely crafted game that will keep you occupied for many hours. Just take to heart one of my father’s favorite sayings: If all else fails, read the directions.

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