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Caught in a bitter feud between spiteful gods, you fight for more than your life. Enlist the mightiest heroes in your epic struggle for an eternal seat atop Olympus. Bid Hercules to call forth devastating earthquakes or order Cadmus to raise additional troops from the dead. Carefully shape your war party--recruit new members from 30 distinct units like Gorgons and Harpies. Everyone improves with experience and your war party carries over from mission to mission.

Review

We've seen it countless times before, and we're sure to see it again: a game that sounds great on paper, but doesn't come close to delivering the experience we were expecting. Call it the G.O.P. syndrome, and welcome Invictus as the newest victim. It's got a great premise, but unfortunately its gameplay is wholly uninspired and singularly uninventive, especially considering the cloth from which this game was cut. The premise of Invictus is rich with potential: It uses the heroes, characters, monsters, and gods of Greek and Roman mythology as the basis for a real-time strategy game, and includes some role-playing elements for good measure. It's a concept sure to intrigue anyone who has thrilled to the excitement of the Iliad, the Odyssey, and all the wonderful tales in Edith Hamilton's legendary book Mythology. Even if you've never delved into Greco-Roman myths, it's easy to see that they'd make a good premise for a game.

In Invictus, you're cast as a human who's basically a pawn in a heated argument between Athena and Poseidon. Miffed that Athena constantly aided Odysseus after he killed Poseidon's son, Poseidon says that not only should the gods stay out of human affairs but that Odysseus was just plain lucky. No other human could ever pull off something like that again. Athena responds that any old mortal could do it provided he listens to her sage advice, and she backs up her big talk by proposing a friendly little wager - the mortal of her choice must earn Poseidon's respect by passing a series of trials, or else all of humanity will be drowned. Of course, you are that mortal.

To aid you with your task, you can choose two famous heroes from the annals of mythology to accompany you, and up to two more will join you as you progress. There are ten heroes in the game - Achilles, Arachne, Atalanta, Cadmus, Electra, Hercules, Hippolyta, Icarus, Orion, and Perseus - and though the designers took some creative liberties to make the characters into suitable hero types, the extensive list reveals their passion for the subject matter. You'll also get to hire all sorts of standard units, including cavalry, spearmen, swordsmen, and archers, as well as more exotic warriors like gorgons, minotaurs, amazons, and even animals like black bears.

Invictus relies on many real-time strategy conventions, making it simple for anyone who's ever played one before to jump right into the fray. But newcomers would truly appreciate the game's excellent tutorial, which not only teaches you just about all you need to know but also has a pretty good sense of humor. Unfortunately, the jocularity is taken too far once you start playing the game, as the characters spout tired (and anachronistic) cliches like, "Let's get ready to rock 'n' roll!"

You have a lot of control over your units and can have up to 20 units in your army. You can group them, order them to assume prearranged formations, create new formations for them on the fly, set waypoints for them to follow, and adjust their bravery and aggressiveness levels. But at the core of your fighting force are the heroes you pick to assist you. Each one has an "appeal," a special power bestowed on the hero by the gods, which he can use provided he has enough "god points" to make the request. The appeals are varied and powerful, and run the gamut from elemental attacks like lightning, fireballs, earthquakes, and tornadoes to the ability to summon skeletal warriors, transform into a venomous spider, and increase movement speed. You'll be sorely tempted to use appeals early on during each mission, but unless you've stockpiled plenty of god points, you should hold off on using these lifesavers until the situation is dire. Unfortunately, appeals don't discriminate; if you have Icarus call down a tornado, it can wreck your own war party just as it can wreck the enemy. Not exactly what you'd call divine intervention.

The lands where you do your adventuring are peopled with all sorts of characters with whom you can interact. Some offer advice, some sell goods, some just gripe, and so on. These nonplayer characters must have been tossed into the mix to give Invictus the atmosphere of a role-playing game, but most of the time the characters just act like windup robots as they repeatedly bark the same lines and move stiffly about the prefab village they supposedly inhabit. You might appreciate the services these puppets provide - being able to buy armor, healing potions, and upgrade units in the middle of a quest can make the difference between victory and defeat - but when all's said and done, they're little more than talking vending machines. -- Stephen Poole
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