Genesis Rising: The Universal Crusade
Nautral selection has its sight set on Dreamcatcher’s interesting new RTS.
Tags: Genesis Rising: The Universal Crusade Categories: PC Previews, Previews
Posted by Tracy Erickson on Feb 17th, 2007
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While Dreamcatcher hopes natural selection will shine on its new space real-time strategy game, Genesis Rising will have to survive among the fittest of the genre when it launches in March. Set in a distant future in which humanity is guided by a militaristic religion, the game puts you in the role of the ambitious Captain Iconah as he searches for a powerful artifact, know as the Universal Heart. An icon that grants godlike powers, Iconah is compelled to make war with alien civilizations in his single-minded pursuit of the Universal Heart’s powers. Only by using sophisticated organic spaceships that thrive on blood, can Iconah navigate space in his holy quest. Through the course of the game’s lengthy campaign, you’ll raise a fleet of genetically-engineered spacecraft to quash humanity’s foes and claim divine authority.
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Elements of both real-time strategy and role-playing are present in Genesis Rising since you can tactically direct your spacecraft to engage enemy forces, as well as fully customize them. Genes, which can be purchased from traders or harvested from defeated enemies, enable you to modify your spaceships with new weapons and abilities; even more, special abilities can be learned by incorporating genes into your ships’ DNA. Ships can be mutated in six distinct genetic categories: automatic weapons, ranged weapons, cripplers, boosters, abilities, and special items. As your ships evolve, you’ll be able to take on more challenging enemies and employ more advanced tactics. Be prepared for some funky-looking spaceships, as your genetic tinkering will yield unusual results. Genesis Rising features an interesting visual style with realistic star-studded backdrops populated by monstrous spacecraft that look as though they’ve warped in from another dimension.
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Blood runs thicker than water and in Genesis Rising this rings particularly true—everything in the game is directly dependent on this core resource. Constructing a modest squad of vessels requires collecting blood from fallen enemies. Rather than commissioning an armada of ships, the game encourages focus on a small number of vessels. Establishing a small fleet enables you to toy around with various strategies versus simply beating down enemies with waves of units. In one game, for example, we sent a squadron on an attack order against a small group of enemies and then instructed different weapons systems on an individual ship to target separate enemies. Given the generous freedom offered in the game’s tactical encounters, as well as the wide range of genes available for customizing your ships, Genesis Rising should provide a compelling real-time strategy experience.
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With its concentration on tactics, Genesis Rising doesn’t feature much in the way of base building. Blood can be harvested from stations, which remain stationary through the course of a mission. Ships can be constructed from a mothership, as well as a factory; however, the factory’s primary function involves genetic engineering of your vessels. The mothership is capable of creating light fighters and other types of small ships, whereas the factory can be upgraded to output heavy fighters. While you don’t have to spend much time building structures, you will need to be mindful of maintaining your fleet by keeping a constant supply of blood. Even this is rather basic, allowing you to maximize your time devising clever tactics to oust enemies from the map.
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The tactically-oriented gameplay ought to be perfectly suited for multiplayer, which will offer both cooperative play through the campaign missions and 16-player competitive matches. Playing with a friend in tandem through the campaign is a nice option, but from what we played it’s going to be about the competitive matches. Huge sixteen player bouts have the potential to become quite competitive, especially considering diplomacy and trace options embedded in the multiplayer game. Between the fully-featured multiplayer modes and lengthy single player campaign, there will be more than enough gameplay to go around when the game ships next month. While Genesis Rising may not be the epic strategy game that goes where no man has gone before, it does promise to breathe a little new life in the genre.
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Tags: Genesis Rising: The Universal Crusade
Posted by Tracy Erickson on Feb 17th, 2007 and is filed under PC Previews, Previews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
