Demigod [PC]

21 Apr 2009 at 23:26:14 by Tim McDonald
Systems used to review this title: (PC)

Demigod is clearly a labour of love. It exudes professionalism and – perhaps moreso – style, from every pixel. It’s a piece of work that, from the very beginning, reminds you of why you play games.

But what is Demigod, you ask? Good grief. You ask all the tricky questions, don’t you?

The lazy (and, indeed, wrong) way of explaining it is to say that someone spilled Diablo on your RTS. Except in a way completely unlike Warcraft 3. Except for the Defense of the Ancients scenario for Warcraft 3, which it’s actually quite similar to. Except – oh, sod it. Let’s start again.

You take control of one of eight Demigods. You and your team of likeminded Demigods have to win one of eight maps, in ways that – depending on the gametype selected – range from destroying the enemy’s Citadel (the heart of their power) to merely killing your opponents a set number of times. The usual RTS things, like troops rushing towards your enemy base, and resource collection, pretty much happen without your intervention. What you control is the Demigod.

Those Demigods are deliciously varied. They’re split into two camps: the Assassins and the Generals. Assassins are self-sufficient and monstrously destructive, while Generals have the ability to summon additional troops that are actually under their command, and tend to be more focused on buffing their allies. As you slaughter enemy troops, kill Demigods, and capture flags – which grant buffs, like extra gold to be spent in the item shop or at the citadel, or more portals which your free minions can pour out of – your Demigod gains experience and levels up, to a maximum of 20. As your Demigod levels, it gains points that can be put into a variety of skill trees, and your level 20 build will very likely be different from someone else’s, because there aren’t enough points to max every tree. Whether your Rook has staggeringly powerful hammer slams, or a trebuchet on his head, or the ability rip enemy towers apart to rebuild himself, is up to you – but he won’t be able to do all three to their fullest.

This is where your teammates come in, because Demigod is very much a team game. Not one single map is built for 1v1 play; they’re all for 2v2 up to 5v5. How well you work with your teammates and how well your abilities not only complement each other, but work to counter the abilities your opponents choose, is what matters.

You’d think that an RTS that essentially gives you one unit wouldn’t be strategically or tactically solid, but it is. Other than your Demigod, you can improve your team in various different ways, too. Purchasing upgrades at the Citadel benefits everyone, and these range from adding more powerful units to the waves of minions that pour out of portals, to making your towers more powerful, or increasing the amount of experience you gain whenever you earn some. Naturally, if your opponents focus on improving their towers, you may wish to upgrade the health of your minions, or upgrade the minion types when you can afford it so that you get some nice siege units – or maybe both. But perhaps your opponents have also invested in a lot of area-of-effect attacks that will mince your minions, so getting some powerful direct-damage abilities to take them out of the action quickly will also be important. Or you could forget about your minions and upgrade your Demigod’s siege abilities.

And then, of course, there’s knowing the right time to use your particular abilities, or which flag to go for, or whether to get involved in the battle, or whether to run. I’ve just devoted four paragraphs to describing potential strategies and ways in which the game might go, and I’ve barely scratched on it, having not mentioned items or equipment, so take my word for it: Demigod has a lot of depth.

What it does not have is good AI, or even a decent single player component. The AI seems able to handle itself in the smaller matches, with 2v2 and 3v3 skirmishes providing a fair amount of fun, but past that, it becomes incredibly difficult to co-ordinate with your silicon chums. Other than Skirmish, there’s a single player tournament mode that puts you through eight matches, mixing up the teams, maps, and gametypes, with points awarded for essentially being the MVP in each match. If you win, you get a short ending sequence, with a voiceover dictating what sort of god you become. These, at least, are nice; learning that my Unclean Beast has devastated populations the world over and gloried in the deaths of millions is just the sort of pick-me-up I like before lunch.

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