Circuit Jerk

(This is the first part in a series of impressions of free full-product PC games)

S2 Games are the guys who have been collecting esoteric board games since they were 12. They know games more than they know fun. They think in units and options — not in events and expanse. And those are the guys you want making a game like Savage 2, a mix of bare-bones RTS with surprisingly fleshed out team-arena combat.

Most people have probably had this idea at one point or another while watching a mindless RTS horde lose a skirmish. If only I were at the WASD, the hapless player thinks. The game room club feels your pain. And they want to help.

The problem with this line of thinking is that hardcore RTS players probably don’t give a shit about direct control. They’d rather just be better at beefing up their numbers next time. And, really, action players could care less about the big picture. That’s evident within at least five minutes of any pickup game. Nobody’s destroying buildings, nobody’s traveling as a team.

But, if you can somehow beat back your more barbaric tendencies, be they strategy or twitch, the real big idea here comes into focus. That is to say, after a while, certain weapons and augs stop being laughable peripheries and become incendiary strokes of genius. The workmanlike craft of S2 Games gives you a set of attacks that feel balanced and at home in the game they’ve created. It makes most battles, protracted as they may be, feel like the victor worked for what he got out of real heavy lifting — not graceful twitch clicking.

Like most of the games we’ll be talking about in this series, Savage 2 gives only slightly less than what it gets from willing suspension. Just like Key to the Kingdom.