You get what you pay for.

User Rating: 5.4 | SpellForce: The Order of Dawn PC
This game is amounst the cheaper rpg'ish games out there. I was surprised it was only twenty bucks when I got it earlier this year. I had seen the pics and read reviews for it here at gamespot. I thought it looked rather fun and had to give it a try. I was quite wrong on my initial analysis.

At first this game is fairly entertaining. It's like a mix of Warcraft 2 and Diablo 2. Like Warcraft you build little encampments and raise armies. Like Diablo 2 you've a main character to develop and collect items for. In addition to this, you collect heros to help out your main character, but they are fairly static.

Spellforce has a fairly innovative system of how you choose your races and heros. You collect stones that represent each. You accumulate stones and the newer stones are normally better and replace the older ones. For instance, you'll get a higher level of dwarves to control or a higher level hero to call forth.

Another innovative element of this game is that you can change the view to be a first person view, so it's kinda similar to Morrowwind in that respect. This aspect actually adds little to the game since it's far easier to fight battles from a higher perspective.

The storyline at first has potential, but eventually becomes shallow, disjointed, and boring. As you continue to play, each battle becomes more and more repetitive. Eventually you feel like you are working rather than playing just to finish the game.

Aside from the innovative efforts this game attempts, there isn't much substance. It's barely worth twenty bucks, but if you can get it for less you might as well give it a try. The NPCs can be somewhat entertaining, but it's just not enough.