While we in the gaming community often bemoan the proliferation of sequels and franchises from companies seeking to make a quick, uncreative buck, there is something to be said for the finely tuned game experience that can emerge from a sequel to a beloved game. If you would dispute this point, you could look toward the first-person shooter market and observe the refinement of Quake II over its well-loved predecessor or observe the many critics who prefer The Godfather, Part II or The Empire Strikes Back over their respective first volumes. Such is the case with Myth II: Soulblighter. As wonderful as the original was, Myth II was the pure distillation of real-time tactical beauty with refinement and class. Or, as much class as you could pack onto a battlefield stained with blood and ichor.
In contrast with many other real-time war games of the time, Myth II had no component of gameplay dedicated to the creation of units or towns. When the original came out in 1997, it was a refreshing alternative to the monotony of unit creation found in WarCraft II and Command & Conquer. Rather than controlling a small group of peons and workers to build a miniature town that then allowed the player to create units for battle, Myth focused on the battle straight away. At the beginning of each mission, players were given a specific number of units, and those would be the units that they had to fight with for the entirety of the mission unless an element of the script introduced them to more units.
Units were precious in Myth II. They were not disposable in the way of so many RTS that came before. When any of the units were damaged, it was a big deal for the player. The team at Bungie heightened the sense of attachment to units by also allowing the units to gain experience during combat. If a player were a super tactician in the single player campaign, he would be able to keep many of his upgraded, experienced units as he moved from mission to mission, and they would perform significantly better than the rookies in the campaign.
Make no mistake, the game was dark and gritty. The single player story was conveyed mostly through a series of journal entries from an anonymous soldier in the battles against the invading Fallen Lords. Where there was barely any story to speak of in WarCraft II, the single player campaigns of Myth and Myth II were actively entertaining. Betrayals, when they occurred, were painful. The fact that the player controlled a small collection of units increased the sense that he was insignificant in the face of massive changes in the fantasy world.
But, really, what made Myth so great, and what Myth II improved upon, was the shift in focus away from real-time strategy to real-time tactics. Strategy is the domain of generals and warlords while tactics are the domain of corporals and sergeants. It is war on the small scale. And on that small scale, small decisions matter. In Myth II, it is not simply a matter of outproducing another player in a multiplayer match. It is about the proper employment of troops. There is no brute force solution in the game. There is no teching to Frost Wyrms or Chimeras. You have X number of units, and you had better damn well keep them alive.
Two aspects of the game add considerable depth to the tactics a player can and needs to employ over the course of game: height and space. By that, I mean that Myth occurs in a 3D map where the height of a ranged unit can affect how far the projectiles reach. And, as for space, the units in the game cannot overlap, so the formations are integral to survival. A player can effectively create a wall of stronger melee units to shield the ranged units behind them. And yet, thanks to the powerful physics engine, each of the projectiles from those ranged units, be they arrows or spears or body parts, can actually hit friendly units. Thus a player has to consider how to properly place his archers to allow them to attack the enemies units without damaging his own units too badly. How about a nice hill? Well, that will work for a while, but what if the opponent sends a small contingent of fast melee units up to the hill and scatters the archers to the four winds? Point and counterpoint. Thrust and parry.
If the game only had melee units and archers, it would still be incredible, but there are also a number of other units that make the game particularly memorable. Dwarves are explosive-lobbing freaks who can potentially destroy an entire army that is packed together too closely. As a result, players tend to scatter their units when they see a dwarf approaching, but they also have satchel charges that they can drop. The canny Myth player will have a fast but weak ghol pick up the charge and run into the middle of an army and have an archer fire flaming arrows at the poor ghol until he explodes into tiny, colorful bits with the opponents army. If it sounds suspiciously like a suicide bomber… well… you probably won’t like the wights. Those units can only attack once. They are slow, and they attack by stabbing themselves in the chest unleashing a gaseous explosion that kills the wight anybody nearby.
The multiplayer options were deep. Here’s a brief–ha!–rundown from Wikipedia:
- Body Count: The player or team that deals the most points of damage within the time limit wins.
- Capture the Flag: Each player or team has a flag at their starting location. If the flag is ever lost, even for a second, the player is eliminated.
- Last Man on the Hill: A flag is in the middle of the map. The winner is the player who controls the flag when time runs out. If multiple players contest the flag, the game goes into sudden death, and the first player to get uncontested control of the flag for five seconds wins.
- King of the Hill: A flag is in the middle of the map. The player is credited for every second that he controls or contests the flag. The winner is the one with the most time when the game ends.
- Territories: Several flags are scattered across the map. The winner is the one who controls the most flags when time runs out. If any flag is contested, the game goes into sudden death.
- Flag Rally: Several flags are scattered across the map. The winner is the one who tags all the flags first (where “tagging” means taking uncontested control.)
- Steal the Bacon: A ball is in the center of the map. Any unit can move the ball by running into it, and clicking directly on the ball will cause the unit to follow it and bump it roughly in the direction the unit is running. The ball can also be blasted around with explosives. The winner is the player who controls the ball when time runs out. If the ball is contested, the game goes into sudden death.
- Captures: Like Territories, but with balls instead of flags.
- Scavenger Hunt: Like Flag Rally, but with balls instead of flags.
- Balls On Parade: Like Capture the Flag, but with a ball instead of a flag.
- Assassin: Each player gets an assassin target, usually a helpless Baron but sometimes more powerful units. If the assassin target dies, the player is eliminated.
- Stampede: Each team has one or more flags and a herd of animals or peasants. For each animal that reaches an enemy flag, the animal is teleported away and a point is gained. The winner is the team with the most points when all the animals are dead or safe, or when time runs out.
- Hunting: Dozens of computer-controlled wildlife units such as deer and hawks are placed on the map. For each animal killed, a point is scored. The winner is the one with the most points when time runs out.
Impressive, right? My particular favorite was Steal the Bacon on the evocatively named map “Gimble in the Wabe.” If you don’t get the reference, well, maybe it’s time you read a few poems.
So far, though, most of this praise could have applied to the original game just as well as to Myth II. What made Myth II stand out was the inclusion of a map and tools editor that spawned an entire community of avid developers. People used the physics engine in the game to create entirely new games that had nothing to do with the fantasy environment of the series. I confess that I even spent a large number of hours designing my own units and maps for my friends and I to play on.
The community was so keen on these tools that after Take-Two purchased the rights to the franchise, the company immediately released (or re-released, really) Myth II with a load of community mods as Myth II: Worlds. One intrepid developer even fashioned a mod called Blue and Grey about the American Civil War.
Unlike other games I have enshrined in my heart, I don’t think I’m particularly good at Myth II. That’s not to say that I’m atrocious at the game. It’s more that there are so many of the elements of the game that it’s impossible to achieve mastery. At least, it was impossible for me. That’s what kept me going back to the battlefield, and that’s why I still occasionally fire up my old copy of the game blow up a wight or two.
Or perhaps I just really like gratuitous amounts of violence and gore. That’s what my therapist thinks.