Spotlight On - Dreamlords: Resurrection

When you start the game, you control a single dreamlord, a powerful demigod of legend. Your charge is to travel the world, helping people and gaining loyal followers. These followers can be used to improve your personal empire or fight by your side as military units. In the single-player campaign, the world itself is a large, abstract island divided into dozens of different sections. Each section contains a mission for you to complete, which includes such tasks as killing a certain number of monsters or protecting a village. In the mission we saw, it was our dreamlord's duty to escort a small band of civilians to a designated location. While undergoing a mission, the game adopts the top-down perspective seen in most real-time strategy games. The controls are equally familiar; simply drag a box around the units you wish to attack with and click on an enemy to turn them loose.

Our dreamlord failed his mission after succumbing to a barrage of wild boar attacks and one oversized scorpion. However, because our character had made it close to competition, he was rewarded for his troubles. Every dagger, potion, and other piece of loot you collect can be stored for later use or broken down into either soul powder or soul gems. The former attracts more followers to you, while the latter is the game's form of currency. There's also a post-battle screens that shows the status of your battle units. The high-damage, low-health melee units that our dreamlord brought had been wiped out, so he decided to spend a few medical points to revive them. How many medical points you have, as well as numerous other factors, is determined by how well you play the management portion of the game. Researching new technologies, constructing new buildings, crafting new items, and outfitting your characters are all handled in this section.

Above all else, your most important resource is followers. All of the other upgrades just aren't possible without an army of minions to perform the grunt work. You can pool your resources by joining up with other players and forming a convergence. Once your convergence has some experience under its belt, you can go online and take on other players in the game's PVP arenas. Similar in many was to the single-player world map, the PVP world map is broken down into several small islands, which are then broken down into different sections. When you launch an attack on another player's section, he or she has a limited amount of time to respond or the section goes to you. Controlling a certain number of sections unlocks special bonuses for your convergence, if you can hang on to them all.

If cooperative play is more your style, Dreamlords has also got you covered. When you launch a mission in the single-player campaign, there's now a co-op button that you can use to invite another player to come and aid you on your mission. Mastering Dreamlords: Resurrection will take a combination of quick-witted tactical prowess and long-term planning. For those interested, you can join the game's public beta over on its official website right now.