Besieger is, as I’ve said, your standard real-time strategy game. It’s got two opposing sides, three resources and lots of units and structures to build. The structures are key in the game, and if you aren’t building lots of defensive structures, you’re going to get crushed. Crushed, that is, assuming the enemy units can get over their horrible pathing issues. Units are problematic to keep in formation, as the moronic AI for your men (and the opposition’s) will randomly wander in just about any direction except the one you’ve ordered them to go in.

Let’s get back to the structures, which are the only highlight of the game. Note I said "highlight" and not "saving grace" because frankly, this game needs a lot more in order to be saved. The structures, unlike the units, are grand and glorious to look at. And it’s up to you to make them even grander through proper construction planning and resource management. The bigger the fortifications you build, the tougher it’s going to be for your opponent to take them down. And no amount of cheap throwaway units is going to be able to take out some of the really big structures. If you’re on the side doing the besieging, you’ll need to build siege engines, which are your only hope of taking down heavy fortifications This is a nice change from the RTS norm, since usually even the crummiest of units can do severe damage to structures.

While the building system in the game helps prevent the classic hit-and-run attacks that plague many RTS’s, the offensive gameplay is sorely lacking The key issue, outside of the poor AI, is that in order to build offensive units, you have to build a special structure for constructing each type of unit. Let’s say you want to build a spearman, well, you first build a spearman "school." Next, you send your standard worker off to spearman training in that structure. A short time later, he strolls out, now a ready-to-rumble spearman. It’s an interesting way of preventing players from amassing oversized armies, but it significantly slows the gameplay. To top it off, this conversion system makes it difficult to develop a rich offense, since you’re constantly worried about striking a balance between having enough worker units around, and building a decent army. If you like your RTS’s fast- or even medium-paced, Besieger will surely frustrate you.

The single-player campaign is an exercise in futility thanks to the gameplay mechanics. Each side has what amounts to a hero. That hero is handy since he bestows a leadership bonus on any friendly unit in the area. Problem is, he’s generally pretty idiotic in his actions, and you frequently find he’s plunged himself into the thick of battle. Near death? Never you mind that, he’s going to keep on fighting until you lose him. Once he’s gone, he doesn’t come back, and you’ll have to restart the mission.

The presentation is a mix of palatable and poor, with the visuals being on the former, and the audio being the latter. Character models are chunky and move in a herky-jerky robot cartoon fashion. The environments, however, are well rendered, and thus offset the staleness of the unit design somewhat. The sound, on the other hand, is best experienced with your speakers turned off. Voice work is phenomenally bland, with each unit type muttering some trite phrase after their creation. The majority of the dialog is delivered in a dull monotone that can quickly lull you to sleep. Watered-down combat sounds and a sleepy soundtrack round out the blandness of the aural experience.

It’s doubtful that even the most casual RTSer is going to stick through the entire single player campaign, much less take a shot at online. The pathing and other AI issues stick with you in the online multiplayer, so why bother? If, by some power greater than I understand, you’re able to tolerate your way through the single-player, you won’t find any reason to play it again.

You could see that the developers were going for something new with Besieger, yet they didn’t quite accomplish what they set out for. Instead, you have a slightly below-average RTS with such poor AI; the whole game is rendered very un-fun. My advice? Unless a pathing patch comes out real soon, ignore this game entirely.