SidingWithTheEnemy said:
Good, I don't know that one. Tell me more about it, its quite hard to sympathize with a name only and the statement that it has been underated...
Sacrifice is a video game published by Interplay Entertainment in 2000 for the Windows 98 platform. Developed by Shiny Entertainment, it is a real-time strategy game, featuring elements of action and other genres. Players control wizards who fight each other with spells and summoned creatures. Impressing reviewers with its graphics, Sacrifice was the first commercial video game to make full use of video graphics cards that can process transform, clipping, and lighting instructions. The game was ported to Mac OS 9.2 in 2001.
Unlike many of its contemporary real-time strategy games, Sacrifice places little emphasis on resource gathering and management. There is no system of workers; the players' wizards collect souls to summon creatures, and their mana?energy for casting spells?constantly regenerates. Players customize their attacks by choosing from spells and creatures aligned to five gods. To defeat an opponent, the player's wizard sacrifices a friendly unit at the opposing wizard's altar, thereby desecrating it and banishing the enemy wizard. Aside from a single-player campaign, Sacrifice offers a multiplayer mode, in which up to four players can play against each other over computer networks.
Sacrifice was created by a small team of developers; most of the work was done by four key personnel. The graphic engine of the game uses tessellation: thousands of polygons are used to display an object and as lesser details are needed, the number of polygons is reduced. By adjusting the required level of detail, Sacrifice can be run on various machines with the highest possible quality of graphics. Complementing the graphics of the game were the voice work of professional actors, such as Tim Curry, and the musical compositions of Kevin Manthei. Sacrifice was praised by reviewers for the novel designs of its creatures and for its humorous content. The high level of attention needed to manage its frenetic combat was mentioned as a flaw. Despite winning several awards, Sacrifice was not a commercial success, and no sequels are planned.
RECEPTION
Initial reactions were favorable.[35][22] Sacrifice's art was a point of focus for reviewers: the fantasy creatures' novel designs made deep impressions on the industry. The designs were so unconventional that gaming journalist Michael Eilers remarked, "It is as if Salvador Dalí and H. R. Giger got together and played around with 3D Studio Max for a few weeks with a cooler full of Bass Ale between them."[20] To fellow journalist Kieron Gillen, Sacrifice resembled a version of the strategy game Command and Conquer as designed by Renaissance painter Hieronymus Bosch.[59] Aside from being impressed by the details in the graphics, GameSpy's Lee Haumersen found the creatures' movements fluid and believable, remarking, "flying dragons heave their bodies through the air reminiscent of Draco in the movie Dragonheart."[54] Journalist Tom Chick summed up the weird experience of seeing his wizard at the head of "a troop of flapping, crawling, loping, whirling, hopping things" as the essence of "what gaming is all about."[8]
Impressing IGN with its "wonderful land full of character and imagination", Sacrifice was the gaming site's choice for the best strategy game of 2000.[67] It was honored in the same year by European Computer Trade Show as the Best PC Game of the Show.[68] Since its release, Sacrifice has been one of PC Gamer's Top 100 Games for at least eight consecutive years.[59][69] Looking back at the history of real-time strategy gaming, Geryk pointed out that Sacrifice's "depth and originality" was unparalleled in the genre and often overlooked in favor of its graphics.[57] The staff of gaming site UGO shared a similar opinion, naming the game in 2009 as its eighteenth top strategy game of all time.[70]
Although Sacrifice was honored as a quality game, industry observers pointed out that its qualities were forgotten by most people; the staff of GamesRadar said the game was "practically invisible to the gaming public",[71] and according to Gillen, few remembered Sacrifice as the pioneer of the mouse-gesture control system, which was praised as revolutionary in Peter Molyneux's later game Black & White. Gillen further lamented that Sacrifice's release heralded the end of Shiny's forays into creative game development, as the company switched to producing more mainstream products, such as Enter the Matrix.[59] Despite receiving numerous calls for a sequel, Shiny said in 2002 that it would not produce one.[72] Seven years later, GamesRadar repeated the call for a sequel while proclaiming Sacrifice "one of the most underappreciated games of all time".[71]
