Kessen: A "could have been solid"
Gladio
60% score
If you are waiting for that perfect console RTS then, well, keep waiting. Although this game has it's moments too many flaws take away from the overall experience. The key ingredient in an RTS is strategy, but this game seems devoid of strategy for the most part. The game basically runs on luck and how many units you can flank. Although flanking sounds strategic, it usually seems to come down to common sense. Before a battle starts, the theory is that you can choose two officers to switch sides based on loyalty and power, while choosing locations, fortifications, and ambush points for your own units. But in execution you have about 2 or 3 enemy commanders to try and turn, and there are only a few set location from which to place your units. Choosing what unit types you want is highly limited also, which makes the game feel highly contstricted, like highschool. "You can do it anyway you want as long as it is how we want it." Um, ok. Although the game does a great job showing off the PS2's graphical prowess by showing the battles up close and watching short sequences of special moves you have chosen, you will spend most of your time from the bird's eye view were it looks like a jumble of tacks are mixing with another jumble of tacks. The short sequences showing the special moves also get highly repetitive also, and the voice acting in them is laughable at times. The controlls would be horrible if the game didn't pause while you fumbled around the map trying to get the right unit and then frustratedly tried to get them to the spot you want. A cool touch that the developers tried is a battle tree of sorts. Depending on whether you lost or won a battle you may end up in a completely different scenario. Which might have givin the game some good replay value, if all the flaws were not there. Despite the games label as an RTS it feels like the game is strategising for you, which feels like a glorified history lesson. It takes more than a few gimicks to make a game great.
