Savage 2 Review : DotA in FPS

First and foremost, I hate DotA (Defense of the Ancients). You can't jump, you can't run and you can only use mouse to direct your movement, and that is not COOL. I like FPS (First Person Shooter) games, it gives you the feeling of being inside the game, which is more Exciting! And here I present Savage 2 : A Tortured Soul, a free FPS and RTS (Real-Time Strategy)combined MMO game.

Story
2 factions fighting against each other. Legion of Man vs Beast Horde. Humans don't like Beasts, Beasts don't like Humans. That's it. If you really want to read about the story, click here.

Gameplay
You play as Legion of Man (LoM) or Beast Horde (BH) with a maximum of 64 players on a map, though finding a 32 players' map is a hard task. LoM's units mainly use melee weapons such as hammer, axes and swords, ranged weapons such as guns, crossbow and other projectile weapons that consumes ammo. BH use their own claw to deal melee damage and employ magic as their ranged attack that consumes mana.

Most normal units are free, but more powerful unit such as Legionaire(LoM) or Predator(BH) costs golds to use it. You can play as building destroyer units too (needs golds), such as Steambuchet and Battering Ram for LoM, Tempest and Behemoth (LotR Troll rip-off) for the BH faction.

Gold is the only resource in the game. You can earn it by killing NPC creeps, enemy units or build Steam Mine (LoM) or Mine Grove (BH) on a gold mine.

You can play as commander or on-the-ground units. As a commander, your job is to build and help your units whenever possible. You get the top-down view, just like a RTS game. You can't swith off to play as ground units. You get special powers such as armor enhancement or heal to help your units and armor reduction or drain life to deteriorate enemy units. Use those ability whenever you can as they can really turn the tides.

As the on-the-ground units, you can be a healer, a melee attacker, stealth unit or siege unit. Your objective is to destroy other factions Stronghold(LoM) or Lair(BH). That's all. Easy? In your dreams. You have to get past the enemy factions Defence Tower and their units too. You can split into different squads with an officer. The officer have a special ability to create a spawn point. Most important thing as ground unit, STICK TOGETHER! Going ramboo and you are sure to be killed. If your commander suddenly disconnected or maybe flee, you can assume the mantle of commander when you respawn.
You will level up each time you gain enough experience, up to maximum of level 15. Each level you get 4 points to split into 4 attribute : endurance (increase hp, hp regeneration), intelligence (increase mana, mana regenaration), agility (increase stamina, stamina regeneration) and strength (increase melee attack).

Constructing specific building gives you access to other units, abilities or items. As a ground unit, you can buy armor or potions to aid you in battle.

You also get the chance to become Hellbourne unit, which is far more powerful that any unit in both factions. To become 1, you have to kill a certain amount of enemy unit and build a Hellshrine on a Scar. Once you become Hellbourne, your faction will almost certainly win the battle. Be warned though, healer units from both factions can deal a lot of damage to Hellbourne.

You can upgrade you account to Prime account for USD 9.99 (1-time charge). Having a Prime account allows you to have extra 2 inventory slots, play as Hellbourne for unlimited times (regular accounts can only play once per map), view your stats online and download every game replays.

Graphics and Sound
The graphic quality is simply beautiful. You can clearly see the details of the building, and the building will catch fire when it's health is getting low. And explosion from buildings shakes the screen, giving you some realism.

The music sounds to me like orchestra from medieval time. Every gun have their own shooting sound and melee weapon swinging sound. You can make the voice chat produce sound from Arnold Schwarzenegger (though I don't know how) such as "Get Your Mother Here."

Conclusion
This game is really addictive. You can get lost in it for hours and still don't want to quit! By the way, this game is playable on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux platform. Yes, you read it right, LINUX! A good quality game for the free OS. It didn't lag even though there's like 32 on a map. The problem is that there aren't many players on the server, around 160++ player every time I login to play, maximum being 240++.
Overall, this game deserves a 9 out of 10 for being fun, addictive, free, combining many elements and being Linux platform compatible.