Game Reviews

Rise of the Lost Empires (iPhone)

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Rise of the Lost Empires (iPhone)

You can't be blamed for giving the evil eye to strategy games on a handset. Glare not, armchair admirals, because Rise of the Lost Empires sets sight on an active style of strategy gaming that actually works. While the controls need tuning for greater flexibility, this is one real-time strategy game that catches the eye.

The neverending war between good and evil plays out in two campaigns, the Empire of Light kicking things off with a ten mission push against the forces of darkness. Spearheaded by the Knight Gavan and huntress Alarien, the campaign sees you building bases and amass forces to strategically quash the orc uprising.

Completing the first five missions of the Empire campaign unlocks an additional ten missions played from the perspective of the orc Raiders.

Narrative detail gets pushed to the sidelines as the game's active brand of real-time strategy heats up. Rise of the Lost Empires can be billed loosely as a strategy game, though it streamlines commonplace elements to such a degree that it plays more like an indirect action game than a contemplative tactical adventure.

Initially, you're granted control over a single unit: a hero. In the style of a top-down role-playing game, the early missions in both Empire and Raider campaigns run you through easy errands defeating enemies with taps of the screen.

As you progress, you earn the ability to commission units from barracks to bolster your fighting force. Soon thereafter, the right to construct buildings opens up new units for purchase and upgrades to enhance their combat abilities.

Even in the last few levels of both campaigns, the focus remains squarely on sending units into battle and not base building. This gives rise to a far more accessible, active game that forgoes complexity in favour of straightforward strategically tinged combat.

Rise of the Lost Empires runs into problems, though, when it comes to controlling units in battle. Individuals can be selected with a tap, while entire groups are lassoed by drawing two fingers apart to create a selection box. Actions like attacking or seizing a base are contextual, all done by tapping the target when you have a unit selected.

Curiously, there's no option to designate hot keys for groups. You can't conveniently organise your forces into neat squads and direct them with some grand strategy in mind. While the actual method of lassoing units is appropriate, unit selection remains an issue because it's difficult to manage your army.

Too much time ends up being wasted directing stray units to return to a central location so that you can once again lasso them in a big group.

Entering the larger battles that begin to appear in the game's final missions, this becomes an acute problem when you have to deal with dozens of units wandering about the map fighting whatever enemy comes into sight. Units die quickly and often as a result, forcing you to constantly go back and draft reinforcements. It contributes to the watering down of the game's strategic side.

This far from ruins the experience - on the contrary, it shapes Rise of the Lost Empires into a far more action-oriented game than advertised. Instead of intricate tactics, expect bum rush strategies. You will have to grapple with the controls, though it's a mild enough flaw worth overcoming in light of the enjoyable adventure at hand.

Rise of the Lost Empires (iPhone)

Rise of the Lost Empires packs two satisfying campaigns, though improvements to the controls would enable this active brand of real-time strategy to march from capable to exemplary
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Tracy Erickson
Tracy Erickson
Manning our editorial outpost in America, Tracy comes with years of expertise at mashing a keyboard. When he's not out painting the town red, he jets across the home of the brave, covering press events under the Pocket Gamer banner.