Savage 2: A Tortured Soul, A Lost Gem

You might not have heard of it, but if you’re a jaded gamer, chances are you’ll really like it. Savage 2: A Tortured Soul offers not only an array of ten classes wielding both FPS- and RPG-like melee and ranged abilities, but RTS-style commanding roles, as well.  Fall in with the Beast Horde or the Legion of Man and tattoo yourself with strange symbols.  Become a shapeshifter, a shaman with sinuous tree branch fingers, or even a wheeled battering ram.  Work under and over and together with your friends, or struggle together against the PUGs, or struggle together against your friends if you don’t have very good ones.  Oh, and invoke the powers of the underworld from crevasses in the earth by accumulating the souls of your foes, om nom nom nom.

Savage 2 mixed two or three genres that were very comfortable as they were, and so, almost naturally, got mixed reviews and some complaints of roughness.  The RTS aspect, in which the game shows the most audacity, gives the commander a satellite’s view of the map and a few buffs and debuffs to distribute as he sees fit.  For the most part, the commander issues orders and hopes his people follow them.  The concept of directing the movements of real people is an exciting one.  Team coordination can be something more intricate than a bunch of guys shouting into their headsets.

Still, you’re never really in the thick of things unless you’re on the ground.  Groups of players can behave like herds of cats.  One forum post, called “how to command without giving commands,” advises you to make spawn points where you want them to go.  1up calls the fighting units “semirandomized smatterings of players unable to communicate or coordinate fluidly.”  The developers seem to have put most of their efforts into the FPS and RPG aspects of the game.

But despite a few flaws, Savage 2 can be pretty fun.  “It’s nice to play a game that’s not, you know, the usual shoot the dude,” a friend tells me as I write.  Not many of the games out there can claim to be so different.