Game Spy: Nemesis of the Roman Empire

Nemesis of the Roman Empire

Publisher: Enlight Software
Developer: Haemimont
Genre: Historic Real-Time Strategy
Release Date: Mar 25, 2004
ESRB: EVERYONE
ESRB Descriptors: Violence
Connectivity: Online, Local Area Network
Offline Modes: Competitive
Online Modes: Competitive
Number of Players: 1-8

Nemesis of the Roman Empire (also known as Celtic Kings: Punic Wars outside the US) is Haemimont Games' follow-up to its well-received real-time strategy game Celtic Kings: Rage of War. Nemesis is built upon the same engine as its predecessor but adds two new races, the Carthaginians and the Iberians, to the Gauls and Romans that were available in the original Celtic Kings. While on the surface Nemesis offers features we've seen many times before in the genre, such as hero characters and a lack of base-building, it also includes a clever logistics model and better-than-average artificial intelligence to help it stand apart from the numerous RTS clones on the market.
On the whole, Nemesis' presentation is easily the game's worst aspect--relatively speaking. The orchestral-style music sets an appropriate mood for a game based on classical wars between Rome and Carthage, but the few available scores grow repetitive rather quickly. Voice acting in the game is also rather bad, just as it was in its predecessor. Simplistic cutscenes are interspersed between the campaign missions, but for the most part, the characters in the game interact via text boxes, and mission objectives are given to you with more unceremonious text.
Graphically, the game is pretty good but not great, as the engine seems to have aged since the original Celtic Kings. There's a decent sense of scale between the units and buildings, as well as a fair amount of detail in the actual unit models. The animation is where things start to fall apart--while most units look fine while standing in place and battling, they have somewhat awkward walking motions.
Minimum System Requirements
System: 400 MHz Pentium II Processor or equivalent
RAM: 128 MB
Hard Drive Space: 700 MB
Screen Shots