1. Metal Slug (MVS)(Run and Gun)2. Puzzle Link (NGPC)(Puzzle)3. Illusion of Gaia (SNES)(RPG)4. Warhammer 40,000: Rites of War (PC)(Strategy)It has been a long, hard road, but the Maiden World Davinuus has been cleansed of the Tyranid cancer. The fetid and festering swarm has been crushed beneath an Eldar boot, and the avatar of the bloody-handed god has cleaved the head of the greatest Hive Tyrant, shearing off both its skull and any hopes that the Tyranid's reinforcement fleets will ever reach us. The tumor has been purged, and now the Eldar return to the Craftworld Iyanden with their ancient artifacts to leave Davinuus in the hands of the Imperium of Man's colonists, their short-lived military alliance at an end.
God, I love the 40k universe. Typically I go for the humans, because watching Space Marines commit genocide on an interstellar scale while legions of Imperial Guard throw themselves at merciless alien hordes really gets me in the mood. But Rites of War deserves high praise, for making the Eldar, a race I typically consider a bunch of pansies, into an awesome and powerful force. I can definitely say I have a new found respect for the likes of Striking Scorpions and Fire Dragons, and I'm happy to declare a Swooping Hawk Exarch my MVP of the game. The bonus to all this is that I also eventually made an alliance with the humans and got to field Imperial Guard, Space Marines, and Sisters of Battle alongside my Eldar workhorses. While there are some important trade offs, I was quite happy to have a SoB Seraphim backing my Swooping Hawk at all times, and human armor such as a Land Raider supporting my Eldar infantry. Hell, I even used a Terminator squad as a melee-centric bodyguard for my Farseer. The end result? The Tyranid lie beaten and broken, and I am victorious.
But how does it all work? Well, Rites of War is built from SSI's Panzer General II engine. Combat is turn based, with you moving representations of units or squads around the battlefield to meet mission objectives within a certain number of turns. Most of the time it's something simple: kill all enemies, capture a point, hold a point, or some such thing in less than 40 turns. Most battles in RoW go the same way: prepare yourself for an initial assault of enemies, and then push out and mop up whatever is left. But every now and again you encounter an assassination campaign, where you have to charge through hordes of enemy opponents to kill off a single unit in as little as 12 turns. These are usually the hardest missions and will force you to think out your strategy well in advance.
The units you field also matter, as some have varying ranges, different movement types, different attack types, or special abilities. For instance, a melee unit cannot fight a flying unit if that flying unit uses firearms. This is why my airborne Swooping Hawks ended up being one of my favorite units: Tyranids heavily favor melee. This means the weak SH squad was effectively invincible to half the units my enemy would field. Different attack types also have a greater effect on different kinds of units, such as explosives that annihilate squads or devastator attacks that rip through armor units. Is an enemy tank giving you trouble? Hit him with a Fire Dragon and watch that infested Leman Russ burn. I ended up with a lot of anti-armor units in my force, both because they could retaliate to support other units engaged in up close combat and because I loathe fighting Imperial armor columns. In truth, once I got the hang of things I found nearly every unit worth keeping, and just about every Eldar infantry unit could upgrade into a super-powered Exarch unit once they had enough experience. Even units that I found absurdly weak at the beginning were worth keeping around, with one or two exceptions. I hated the Eldar's Harlequin units, and the Great Harlequin was far too weak for me to keep using him. I favored the Death Jester upgrade for Harlequins much, much more. And some of the early Eldar armor is pathetically weak, even at high levels. It just wasn't worth using them when I could access Imperial war machines instead.
Unfortunately I also had to make sure I kept my units going, as fielding a fresher unit after the mid-way point in the game was tantamount to suicide. As my soldiers gained experience and grew stronger, so too did the enemy. I had maxed out troops by about mid-game, and by the last run of levels, the Tyranid were throwing completely upgraded Genestealers my way like it was going out of style. A fresh-faced Dire Avenger or Howling Banshee would have gone down if they had so much as been sneezed upon. As a result, it is worth playing the game with a great degree of caution, to ensure that your best units don't get killed off, and that even your support levels up and maxes out long before the end game.
Aesthetically, Rites of War is not nearly as pretty as its competition, and its limited in its audio abilities. There are few music tracks, no volume control, and sound effects are maddeningly loud and limited. The one high point to the sound work is the voice actor playing your advising Farseer, who is delightfully over the top in his bloodlust for Eldar dominance. But RoW's greatest sin was going for turn-based style in 1999, after Starcraft had already begun its strategy reign. In fact, RoW feels like it's attempting to get back at Blizzard for SC's obvious rip-offs...though admittedly, Blizzard had already been successful doing this with the Warcraft series. Yes, Blizzard intentionally ripped off Games Workshop for both Starcraft and Warcraft after GW refused to let them use the Warhammer Fantasy and 40k properties. RoW is a response, but the combination of Imperium of Man, Eldar, and Tyranid in a turn-based strategy game that no one played just wasn't enough to even dent the Protoss, Zerg, and Deep Space Rednecks of Blizzard's Starcraft property. After several mostly forgotten game releases in the 1990s, Games Workshop nearly backed away completely from the idea and only put out a few mewling scraps of games until finally opening the floodgates around 2011. Now there is an overabundance of Warhammer games, but RoW comes from a time when they were few and far between.
Did I like Rites of War? Yes. Hell yes. I had a blast with it. Is it a great game? Well, it's got a lot of limitations and problems, but I was surprised at how much I found myself adoring it. For me, yes, it's a great game, but your mileage may vary.