Rapture - World Conquest Review

While there are many great things to say about strategy games, “fast-paced” is rarely one of them. Sure a round of StarCraft may only last like half an hour, but compare that to Civilization 's matches that go on for days or even forever. So if nothing else, Rapture - World Conquest's rapid-fire take on the history of global conflict is at least an unexpected one.

It’s 3000 years until the end of the world, and as an all-powerful god it’s up to you to lead your people to victory before the Rapture happens. But in Rapture - World Conquest millennia go by in minutes, so there’s not a moment to lose. The game condenses typical strategy game tropes into a twitchy five-minute whirlwind. That’s the big, streamlined, and wonderfully mobile-friendly hook. Instead of slowly accumulating resources before methodically planning and executing attacks, the game encourages players to fight and expand as quickly as possible. Launch soldiers against barbarian hordes and rivals like a virus before they strike back. Delay enemies with divine powers like hurricanes and earthquakes for seconds that might as well be centuries. Players don’t have to fully control the world to win, but they do need to at least have the most land.

But the danger that comes from boiling something down is that you can’t help but lose something in the process. Rapture - World Conquest trades the depth and nuance of slower strategy games for a frantic free-for-all of slamming armies of the sole unit type against each other. This alternate experience isn’t inherently inferior. In fact, playing a familiar genre in a new context reveals new angles of how to enjoy it. For example, it’s a lot easier to take big, bold, and risky decisive action when players stand to lose less time. But this is undeniably different - not necessarily shallow, but definitely slighter.

Fortunately, Rapture - World Conquest makes up for this somewhat with wackier features like roundabout achievements demanding players lose the game before the birth of Jesus or maintain 1000 years of peace. Quick and playful classical music sets the tempo and light-hearted tone, and although the overall visual style might be disappointingly subdued, un-lockable elements like flat and square Earth maps are precisely the right kind of ridiculous.

Rapture - World Conquest is like a great summary of a history textbook. It loses some of the finer details, but it gets the big picture right.