Praetorians
Oct 22nd, 2008 by cm1
Some critics would say that real-time strategy games are formulaic; in most of these games, you gather resources, build up a base, create an army of military units as quickly as possible, and pummel your opponents before they can do the same to you. Over the years, developers have taken steps to simplify base building and resource gathering so you can spend more time fighting exciting battles. While it hasn’t quite eliminated all aspects of building up an army, Praetorians does manage to put the focus of its gameplay squarely on battlefield tactics. The game is set in the glory years of the Roman Empire during Julius Caesar’s time at the helm of the Roman army in Gaul. Developed by Pyro Studios, known for the Commandos tactical strategy series, Praetorians features plenty of strategic depth in its gameplay and is a great choice for real-time strategy fans who are looking for an unusual alternative to conventional strategy games.
You can build assault towers to scale walls.
Pyro has equipped Praetorians with a 3D graphics engine that produces attractive results, even if it’s somewhat limited. The maps include wooded regions of Europe, complete with areas of dense forest, tall grasses, streams, and rivers, and elevated plateaus. You’ll even trudge through deserts, complete with dust storms. Flocks of birds and deer populate the battlefield, and you’ll also see weather effects like snow flurries and rain from time to time.
Unlike in most real-time strategy games, in Praetorians, you don’t use or build individual units. Combat soldiers are organized into troops of up to 30; the disciplined armies of the Romans march in neat columns, while the more disorganized barbarians and Egyptians travel in unorganized groups. Praetorians lets you easily combine, divide, and even out the number of soldiers you have in each troop, so you can quickly fill out the numbers of a depleted battalion. If you look closely enough at your troops, you can see some minor graphical issues, such as the way mounted cavalry sometimes appear to be skating along the ground, but the unit animations do generally look impressive, especially when you see hundreds of legionnaires marching perfectly in step. Unfortunately, Praetorians’ audio isn’t quite as good; the in-game sound effects are adequate, but the between-mission cutscenes have rather poor voice acting. Praetorians also has a rather limited orchestral soundtrack, but at least it changes dynamically whenever you begin a battle.
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