It's not a classic of the genre, but it gets the job done and has outstanding graphics and animation work.

Let’s get this out of the way first: Armies of Exigo is not Warcraft 4. But you’d be excused for thinking it was at first. The game has well-rendered cutscenes, a number of radically different playable sides (one human, one beastlike, and one from the underworld), heroes with unique powers, traditional base-building, and devastating AI opponents. Unfortunately, it lacks that Blizzard polish.

The big innovation in Armies of Exigo is the ability to wage war on the surface and under the ground at the same time. In addition to structures that allow you to pass from one level to the other, you can also use certain units to travel between levels at will, and some spellcasters can even affect the underground while on the surface (and vice versa).

While I wouldn’t say the multi-level aspect of the game is revolutionary, it is fun and easy to use. It also has the side effect of making some single-player missions take a lot longer to play.

There are three campaigns, which have a linked storyline so you must play them in order. The missions do get more interesting as the campaigns progress, but the storyline is not especially compelling. The in-game cutscenes before most missions are uninspiring and make me wish the rare and superb rendered cutscenes had taken their place.

The playable units are for the most part a standard mix, but still pretty fun to use in battle. The three races are significantly different from each other and require totally different mindsets to use them effectively.

For example, the Fallen (an alliance of otherworldly and undead creatures) must build their units on areas of corruption (just like the Undead Blight in Warcraft III). The Fallen also heal automatically, and their construction unit doubles as their farm unit (providing “control” to a number of units instead of food).

In the Beast alliance, you have to keep a herd of ox-like creatures to supply your units, but you can also use the animals to ride into battle or as sacrifices to heal other units. The Empire represents the human side, which plays much as they do in other games of this type – they build farms to supply troops, for example, and are the only side that can combine efforts to build a structure faster.

Unit pathfinding is superb. It’s so good, in fact, that you can order surface units to an underground location and they will follow the shortest path to get there – even if it’s through areas you haven’t explored. The other aspects of the game’s AI, though, are more disappointing.

Formations are useless because units on the move scatter and travel at different speeds, ensuring that your light scouts will arrive first (and die before the others arrive).

A few of your units also seem eager to stray from their allies and follow the enemy right to an ambush. And if a unit is being attacked from outside its visual range (such as when it is shelled by artillery), the pummeled unit—and its friends--act as if nothing is happening.

Another problem is a bug that occasionally seems to put all AI units on the map into a coma. This happens especially (but not exclusively) when you restart a failed mission. Enemy armies (and allies, too) just stand around, only attacking when you move into range, and don’t produce new units or gather resources. EA has released a patch for the game, but it doesn’t mention this problem.

On the plus side, the game’s graphics are great, especially the terrain artwork and unit animations. (My favorite is how the trees sway in the wind, and seeing water droplets fall through holes in the underground leading to subterranean lakes.)

Overall, while Armies of Exigo doesn’t reveal a lot of innovation, it has some entertaining moments. (And if you can last until the final campaign, one mission lets you control demons. Demons, I say!)


Review by Keith A. Garrett.