As a god with elemental powers, you’re not gonna let the ancient Babylonians build towers that transgress on the skies. No, you’ll stop the puny humans by smiting them with extreme prejudice. Watching from above, you’ll unleash fire, water, wind, and earth attacks to snipe builders with rocks, slow their movements using rain clouds, and trigger twisters that sweep up entire heretical groups.
It’s an amusing concept, albeit a very straightforward one. Babel Rising’s 15 campaign missions cycle through objectives — things like keeping a tower from being built for a certain amount of time, or killing a number of element-resistant priests — but you’ll do little strategic planning, as most stages pre-select the two elements you can use. Despite changing goals, most levels simply center around blasting groups of humans with your basic powers and using special screen-filling attacks when they’re available; you won’t find lots of differentiation between missions. Unfortunately, huge difficulty spikes hurt the campaign’s pacing, although the later stages do have some enjoyably tense moments, and the game also includes a survival mode and split-screen multiplayer (both competitive and co-op).
All told, Babel Rising is a lightly entertaining diversion — but only when played with a controller. The optional Kinect controls can be extremely fussy: using your right hand to aim the reticle works okay, but triggering spells with your left hand often requires multiple exaggerated movements. Having to flail around to launch even the simplest attack is the very opposite of god-like.
Use your water powers enough, and you can trigger a flood that'll clear the screen.PUBLISHER: Ubisoft • DEVELOPER: Mando Productions • ESRB: Everyone 10+ • MULTIPLAYER 2 on split-screen • ACHIEVEMENTS: Direct • COST: 800 Microsoft Points ($10)
+ Smiting thousands of heretics is enjoyable.
– Little variety or strategic depth.
– Kinect controls are inconsistent.
? Gods can choose only two powers at once? Drag.
