When a group of roaming dwarves get caught in a gravitational pull, and there is more than meets the eye to this story, their trip comes to an abrupt halt. Separated and crashing to the surface, each finds their way through flora/fauna, enemy riddled landscapes that have danger waiting for them at every corner.
What a way to start this RTS.
The game looks like a cross between old-school World of Warcraft (prior to its online presence — yes, that happened during the Windows 3.1 days), but with a touch of Warhammer when it comes to visual style (big bodies, huge armor, almost back-breaking to see). It certainly wants to be both and it doesn’t do a bad job with imitating those two series, even if it’s just brief stints, hints and elements. It has tiny sprinkles of both worlds garnished onto the surface of the gameplay, though not as complicated or addictive as those two big titles might be. Before we go too far into the gameplay, let’s start first with the eye-candy.
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Visually We Are The Dwarves brings some simplistic, yet gorgeous modeling to the table. While your Titan cards aren’t going to be remotely pushed to the limits, you get multi-level environments that teem with breathtaking lighting, colors and personality. The depth of the levels, from above, below and around, provide some real girth to the gorgeous world that Whale Rock Games was trying to accomplish. While the developers seem to want to restrict the gamer into a small sandbox, that sandbox is still very well built. It hides a lot of accessible areas, while encouraging some minor exploration. Spinning the level around can reveal unknown areas, enemies or avoidable fall-offs.
It’s quite visually impressive for what is seemingly a linear built game.
As for the presentation in other areas, the voice acting could use some work. The acting is a bit stiff, which takes a little sell out of the world Whale Rock Games has built. I think they might have been able to find some better actors, which might have been better for dialogue delivery. I know it’s picky, but putting passion into the story, via the acting, goes a very long way when trying to put your gamer into the world they’re playing in.
As for the actual gameplay, it’s pretty simplistic in nature, though the leveling tree will add a bit of complication.
The action comes at you in a fast and furious way that is unforgiving to the unprepared player. Right out of the gates, you’re given limited amount of life, armor and nearly ineffective weaponry. The game’s enemies can detect you through sound, so if you get too close, you’re going to alert them of your presence. Once alerted, they will relentlessly come after you and try to dispose of you without prejudice.
Aside from enemies, you’ve also got to watch out for the end of the levels. The enemy can send you plummeting to your death, as well as your own use of weaponry (the shotgun will give you enough push back that you can easily find yourself falling off the board — believe me, I’ve done that more than a few times). Is this stuff fair? No, and it’s incredibly frustrating, but it does present a healthy challenge when you’re planning your attack, as you have to take everything (enemies, environment, your own stupidity) into account before running in with guns blazing.
When all of the above aren’t presenting you issues, then you have to keep up with the backend of your character. Your armor is in constant state of repair. When it gets damaged enough, the hits from your enemies become more powerful, which does make sense in the scheme of things. Repairing the armor, and upgrading your character, is done through collecting objects and elements around you. The level tree isn’t anything like what you would find in a game like Dragon Age, but it does provide some neat options to power up your little guys. It provides enough motivation for you to keep going through the difficult times and makes it worth your while at the end of the day.
As for the actual gameplay controls, they’re typical of what you would find in a real-time strategy game. You click to move your character, choose your weapon via the keyboard and click on the enemies you want to take down. For a mediocre PC player that lives and dies on a Macintosh (what the hell do we know about gaming, right?), the controls were a bit clunky. I know more seasoned PC RTS gamers out there could probably figure it all out without much of a hitch, but it felt just a bit off. I found myself fuddling through weapons on more than one occasion and improperly reloading to fire at my enemies before they reached me, and mostly missing them in the aiming department. I think my experience is just leftover muscle memory from my MMORPG experience in the last month (click one weapon macro, then assume all is well), but still it hindered the experience just a tad.
A big bright spot for this game is the challenge. If you’re looking for something that is going to put you to the test, then you’ve come to the right place. The artificial intelligence with the enemies is crazy good. Tipping them off unexpectedly through environment or just through visual confirmation is impressive for this small of a title. Whale Rock Games did a fantastic job with the A.I., which presents the biggest challenge during gameplay. It forces the player to strategize before going into a scrum, as I mentioned before. You have to respect coding that can do that, as it really wants you to earn things.
With all this said, let’s get to the summary.
