Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends [PC]

Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends is aptly, if not also clumsily, named. It's fitting that the title begins with "Rise of Nations", which was a streamlined real-time strategy game, built for genre wonks, but made suitable for everyone else with its uncanny interface and clever new gameplay mechanics.

Although it's been spirited away from the constraints of history and into a casserole of sci-fi and fantasy, Rise of Legends is still very much like Rise of Nations. It's still a genre wonk's dream game, with lots of economic details, tactical nuances, and intricate unit relationships. It's shrewdly balanced, opting for three dissimilar sides instead of Rise of Nations' dozen minor variations on the same theme. There's a satisfying progression from a single city core to a map covered in urban developments and criss-crossed by marching armies.

And the interface is as smart as ever. It's worth noting that Age of Empires III, a similar economically heavy RTS, is an example of how a detailed game can get snowed under if its interface isn't good enough. But this isn't a problem in Rise of Legends, which is arguably one of the most complex yet playable RTS games ever made. If you're wondering if there's some way to do something -- find your scouts, select all damaged units, give all your military buildings the same rally point with a single click -- the odds are that it's in there. All the information you could want is available from tool tips. It's meticulously documented and built for your choice of hotkeys or mouse clicks.

There are even more clever new gameplay mechanics this time, mainly centered around the unique twists for each of the three races. The rule sets are similar, but they have very different approaches. The Vinci scout the map with gyrocopters, the Alin use their Land Lore tech, and the Cuotl look around with a Star Bolt that peers down from space. Vinci bring in Clockwork Miners to improve their ore gathering, the Alin research magical mining at their Sand Spires, and the Cuotl latch Holy Arks onto their mines. The Vinci get unique tech prototypes. The Alim have lots of flying units. The Cuotl buildings are shielded.

You can list the differences among the races all day. They're legion. But because the developers at Big Huge Games have cobbled together their own mythologies, it takes quite a while before any patterns emerge, if at all. Rise of Legends is from the same person who created Sid Meiers' Alpha Centauri, which wasn't Sid Meiers' so much as it was Brian Reynolds'. Reynolds and his team created tons of clever backstory for Alpha Centauri, setting it in a distinctive, rich, and smartly written mythology with scads of unique personality. It was so distinct that some people couldn't get past it and just went back to playing Civilization.