Shiny's game Sacrifice (2000)

[jasonrohrer]

Going through a list of "good games" that I missed for one reason or another. Just getting started playing Sacrifice. Hey, the title screen and tutorial world art are impressive.

I'm really interested in how poorly many "great" games from the 90s and 00s have seemed to age. Wondering how this one will fair.

Is it worth my time to learn how to play it?

Also interested in learning about games from that era that *have* aged well.

[KieronGillen]

When I replayed Sacrifice a couple of years back for a retro piece I was amazed how well it had aged. In fact, I enjoyed it more now than when I played it back then.

KG

[Abilio Carvalho]

ditto. There's a lot to be said for character and imagination instead of attempts at photorealism.

[antlers]

Great, classic game.

Shiny included textures that were too large for any of the videocards available at the time of the games release; this really improves the look now that modern videocards can handle them with ease.

[Warning]

Love Sacrifice. And I love GOG for selling it to me again.

When you finish with Sacrifice you might check out Giants: Citizen Kabuto. It's got a similar feel though it's more of a shooter. Sorta. With half-nekkid sea elves and little British space soldiers.

[Greg Kasavin]

I really liked Sacrifice. It was uncompromising in its weirdness and looked amazing for its time, and it had a lot of fresh ideas about how a real-time strategy could feel much more like an action game. I'm surprised it didn't end up having more influence over the years, especially as more and more RTSes attempted to make the jump to console.

[forgeforsaken]

I love the voice-work in this game, especially the narrator

[Jon_Danger]

I played way too much of this game way back when. Some friends and I used to play each other online pretty much nightly.

Such an interesting game mechanic too. Very fun!

[Moggraider]

Sup, Rohrer. Passage was awesome, and so is Sacrifice. I wish a modern equivalent or sequel would be made.

[rossm]

I introduced my dad to this game about a year after it came out. He still plays it a couple times a week. It has its flaws (which cause him to yell at his monitor) such as a poor camera, unit selection and pathing is kind of iffy. The unit AI in general is questionable. Overall, a very fun game. It's still my 2nd favorite PC game behind Startopia.

[jasonrohrer]

Sup, Rohrer. Passage was awesome...

Aww, man, I can't even go to the grocery store anymore... See what happens when I poke my reclusive head above ground for a sec? :)

Thank you, I appreciate the kind words.

[Reed]

It's kind of depressing to see words like classic and retro being applied to something that doesn't seem like it was released that long ago...

Sacrifice was great. Single player and multiplayer. It was one of those games where I was really disappointed that it didn't sell better. A shame that it didn't justify a sequel or some influence in the RTS genre.

[Supertanker]

Tom will be here as soon as he's done reinstalling. Which assumes he ever uninstalled it, which is not a sure thing.

"All your manahoars have been slaughtered."

[Rob O'Boston]

I would be so happy if this came out on XBL Arcade.

Firefists smash!

[espressojim]

Sacrifice is one of my favorite games in the action-RTS genre. It may be in my top 20 games of all time as well. The game has a great look that I think has aged well, and the mechanics/gameplay are fantastic. Being able to tune the spells you bring into the game by picking different sets of missions both makes the game more interesting, and enhances the replay value.

This is a true gem. I need to find my disc somewhere, it would be a blast to play some multiplayer.

[TomChick]

Sacrifice has a permanent place on at least four of the computers at Shoot Club. I played it with a friend about a month ago. It holds up like no other RTS. TRUE STORY!!

-Tom

[Jab2565]

Sacrifice was the first game I snatched up when I got into GoG, I still don't know if multiplayer works right on the Gog version but I would love to play multiplayer with it (I never played it online when it first came out).

[GregB]

Sacrifice is one of the games I make my students play in my Game History and Development class. The assignment goes out to a small group of 3 or so students who then have the game to play for a couple of weeks. After that they report their findings to the class.

It's a game that's almost uniformly disliked, usually because it doesn't quite fit their definition of how a strategy or an action game should work. It doesn't let the player fall back on some of the RTS tactics are that so tried and true. It's also punishingly difficult. Occasionally I'll get a student or two who are able to put the game in the proper context and can appreciate the interesting things the devs accomplished.

It all makes for some pretty fun in-class discussions as this is one of my favorite games.

[Warning]

Sacrifice is one of the games I make my students play in my Game History and Development class. The assignment goes out to a small group of 3 or so students who then have the game to play for a couple of weeks. After that they report their findings to the class.

It's a game that's almost uniformly disliked, usually because it doesn't quite fit their definition of how a strategy or an action game should work.
So that's a failing grade then?

[TomChick]

Uniformly disliked? Kids these days! They better not get on my lawn or I will yell at them from my porch.

I wonder if you have to be an RTS guy to dig on Sacrifice. Maybe that's what's going on. I remember wumpus not liking Sacrifice because he couldn't strafe, or some such nonsense.

WHY CAN"T I STRAFE???!?????!

-Tom

[Xaroc]

Uniformly disliked? Kids these days! They better not get on my lawn or I will yell at them from my porch.

I wonder if you have to be an RTS guy to dig on Sacrifice. Maybe that's what's going on. I remember wumpus not liking Sacrifice because he couldn't strafe, or some such nonsense.

WHY CAN"T I STRAFE???!?????!

-Tom

I think he was comparing it to quake, which is the exact time I stopped listening to anything he ever said about games.

Anyway, I love Sacrifice, it is one of my all time favorites. I liked how you could change your builds around by choosing the various gods at different points. I must have played through it a least a half a dozen times or more with differing builds.

[curst]

I would've welcomed strafing, frankly. The game's pretty great as is, but I keep thinking that it could work better if the controls were more like a third-person shooter. I'm just so permanently used to how you move and look around in shooters that anything resembling them has to have the same basic controls, otherwise I'm discombobulated a little bit.

Of course, making it more of a third-person shooter would mean the game would probably have to remove some of the micromanagement and let your summoned creatures handle their business on their own, meaning the ally AI would have to be rather strong, and this game was made not too much longer after the likes of Daikatana, Fallout, etc...

Oh wow, so that would've been a terrible idea after all, never mind.

Still, I don't see how strafing would've done anything but make it control a little better. Am I forgetting something about the controls that make no strafing a necessity?

[Sebmojo]

Jason, not wanting to derail, but another classic from around then is Battlezone - it's sort of a first person realtime RTS tanky shooter in a hilariously overblown cold war retro sci fi setting. You bounce around the solar system fighting Russkies in hovertanks. Its UI is phenomenal and I think it would have aged pretty well graphically.

IIRC it never got the love it deserved; definitely worth a look if you can find it.

Thanks for Passage too, btw!

[Damien Neil]

I wonder if you have to be an RTS guy to dig on Sacrifice. Maybe that's what's going on. I remember wumpus not liking Sacrifice because he couldn't strafe, or some such nonsense.

No, I liked Sacrifice, and I'm about as far from an RTS guy as you can get.

[marxeil]

I annually install and uninstall Sacrifice. Its too hard for me.
This year I wasn't even able to make it run :(

[JD]

I'd say Sacrifice is one of those 'non-Deus Ex Deus Ex games' - if you're talking about it, someone will reinstall it. In fact, I think I'll reinstall it later today. Enjoyed it a lot way back. Is it working under Vista?

[Naeblis]

Sacrifice is one of the games I make my students play in my Game History and Development class. The assignment goes out to a small group of 3 or so students who then have the game to play for a couple of weeks. After that they report their findings to the class.

It's a game that's almost uniformly disliked, usually because it doesn't quite fit their definition of how a strategy or an action game should work. It doesn't let the player fall back on some of the RTS tactics are that so tried and true. It's also punishingly difficult. Occasionally I'll get a student or two who are able to put the game in the proper context and can appreciate the interesting things the devs accomplished.

It all makes for some pretty fun in-class discussions as this is one of my favorite games.

This part it's pretty interesting: "because it doesn't quite fit their definition of how a strategy or an action game should work".
I say it because i believe there are a good amount of good or great games that their only "flaw" was to be unconventional and not fall squarely and nicely in a preconceived niche (or sometimes, just in a small and forgotten niche) or the marketing made them think it was in a different niche. People seems so bound to preconceptions and categories.


I almost* finished the game 4 times, btw. :)
*:I never beat the final boss :(.

[GregB]

Uniformly disliked? Kids these days! They better not get on my lawn or I will yell at them from my porch.

I wonder if you have to be an RTS guy to dig on Sacrifice. Maybe that's what's going on. I remember wumpus not liking Sacrifice because he couldn't strafe, or some such nonsense.

WHY CAN"T I STRAFE???!?????!

-Tom

This past semester I chose a group who claimed to really like RTS games (we would have great discussions about DoW2) and they still kind of thought it 'sucked.' It's a really hectic game and I think the relentless pace mixed with an interface that isn't quite standard really throws people off. Oddly, none of them realized that you used the minimap to direct your dudes.

One student was positive the game couldn't be completed because he ran into a problem on one mission where he had to take down siege guys tethered to manaliths. Everytime he sent his low ranking units in, they'd get chewed up. He was just trying to overwhelm the enemy with lots of lower level units which just doesn't work in this case. I suggested a different mix and perhap a more intelligent use of spells. And maybe keeping your wizard a bit further away from the carnage. He wouldn't have it. Stubborn guy.

One of the group clearly 'got' it and could run circles around the other two in MP. That was fun to hear.

[KieronGillen]

Its standing with the students saddens but doesn't really surprise me. The few years before the 2000-period had a load of these sci-fi fantasy action/strategy crossbreeds, many of which got brilliant reviews, none which did numbers (See also: Battlezone, Hostile Waters).

My theory is basically because it demands you being literate in two forms - and there's a big section of the audiences who are genre-fascists one way or the other - and also understanding how the two can interact in another way. It's also worth nothing that the only action/strategy games that have sold are ones with a military theme (Brothers in Arms, etc). I suspect it's because the theme allows people to grasp the mechanics far quicker - they understand how the game basically works before playing as it's at least inspired by a real thing.

Shame, really. Hostile Waters and Sacrifice are genuinely incredible.

KG

[Lokust]

I thought Sacrifice was awesome when it came out, but I never beat it in many attempts due to the intensity and difficulty. Still a great game in my opinion.

[Hugin]

I disliked Sacrifice. For one thing, for whatever reason I found the animation of the main character when idle or running around distracting and ultimately annoying.

I thought the graphics for the subsidiary units were pretty lousy (the game was overall pretty, but the smaller units just seemed half baked to me).

I thought the interface was overly clever and pleased with itself, with some interesting ideas that didn't actually suit the pace of gameplay very well.

Sacrifice also took a ding with me just because it was part of a wave of "altera-RTSs" during a two or three year period and I was kind of tired of them by the end when Sacrifice came out (they all seemed more interested "fixing" the genre in introducing novel/cutesy but inefficient/tedious models for unit control or camera control or resource management or whatever, instead of coming up with good scenarios and interesting AI/strategic gameplay to explore them, which is why I play an RTS). There was an even lousier one by Red Storm Entertainment that I forget the name of (looked it up, Dominant Species).

Sacrifice was actually one of the better ones on this score, but like I said, I was just kind of tired of them during that period, and I wanted that main unit to stop dancing around, dammit.

My main positive memory of it was that it had very good music.

(I do consider myself to be an RTS guy, and I loved the Battlezone revival RTS)

[jasonrohrer]

Just got to Tutorial 3.

Wow... I think I just got my ass handed to me by a tutorial level! There's certainly more depth here than I was expecting based on my first impression, and it's great that the game doesn't pander by putting up straw men for me to knock down.

There are some nice touches that I like (the vocal incantations during spell casting), but some of them seem like they will get annoying after a while, and I'm not a huge fan of the "wizards and magic" theme. I agree wholeheartedly about the dancing wizard animation being distracting and annoying!

[Rock8man]

I enjoyed the game in two phases.

Phase 1: On release, me and some friends played the game a lot in multiplayer, and had a great time with the game for a few months.

Phase 2: Around 2003 I tried single player for the first time, and then couldn't stop playing through the campaign over and over, making new types of heroes with different spells in order to customize different heroes.

Unfortunately in Phase 2 I couldn't convince my crew to start playing the game again in multiplayer, but it would have been fascinating to see how much better I could have done in multiplayer without pre-determined spells and heroes.

I don't remember the campaign being especially hard, but maybe that's because I was already familiar with the game through multiplayer's hard fought battles? RTS games are the only genre in which I end up playing games in this order, where I usually play multiplayer and skirmish games first, and learn the games that way, and then maybe sometime later dabble in the single player. Every other genre I generally ignore the multiplayer until after I've finished the campaign/story, and even then I sometimes never try multiplayer in a lot of games.

In the case of Sacrifice, I really wished I'd played single player back in the day now. I really think building a custom hero with spells from different factions that work well together makes a huge difference in the gameplay for multiplayer as well. Ah damn it, you guys are going to make me re-install this game now.

At least it's available on GoG, so I don't have to go back and find my Sacrifice disk, and worry about whether or not it will work properly on modern machines.

[Warning]

Don't forget that if things get too hectic you can actually pause and issue orders. Took me awhile to figure that out.

[jasonrohrer]

Whoa, didn't figure out how to pause and issue orders yet. That will help.

Thanks for the tip!

[dwolfe]

This is out on Steam, too, now.

[goodgimp]

Sacrifice holds a very special place for me. I wouldn't say I played it to death (although I did play and beat it), but it's just been one of those games that absolutely stands out for me. It's easy in my top 5, probably my top 3, games of all time. And I date back to the Commodore 64.

Shiny did some brilliant work on that game.