Please the Gods and Hone Your Office Politics Skills

“Sacrifice” takes place in a mythical universe of wizards and gods, magic and mayhem. But really, it’s a lot like middle management at any major corporation. So, for those who have never played a PC real-time strategy game, here’s how it works--in terms any clawing bureaucrat can understand.

Players take on the role of a wandering wizard whose talent for magic attracts the attention of the five gods who rule over the fractured lands of Golgotha. Think of these five gods as executives without enough real work to do. So they peck at each other and make life generally miserable for those beneath them.

Each wants the wizard to sign on and promises all sorts of wonderful goodies if only he will do the bidding of his patron god. You know, stuff like wipe out a village or desecrate the altars of competing gods.

Into the wizard’s command are dropped a variety of minions--from druids and tickfernos to troggs and frostwolves. These are basically the goons aligned with various gods, and with them the wizard is expected to do battle, risk his life, motivate the troops and do all the heavy lifting.

Now, where all this differs from middle management is in the tools granted to get the job done. In “Sacrifice,” players get all sorts of cool gear--mainly in the form of spells that can rejuvenate injured warriors or turn enemies into blocks of ice or summon a torrent of exploding frogs.

Think how cool staff meetings would be with exploding frogs.

All of this coolness unfolds in a world that is absolutely beautiful, with free-form movement and tons of detail. Unlike most real-time strategy games--which put players in an all-seeing, top-down command view--”Sacrifice” puts players right down on the battlefield. Players can join the fray when necessary to rally the troops and open a can on opposing forces.

With multiple ways of playing the game, “Sacrifice” can actually last longer than some poor slobs’ careers.

‘Sky Odyssey’

“Sky Odyssey” fills a gaping hole in the PlayStation 2 library with a flight simulator that demands skill and precision but doesn’t require blasting anyone out of the sky.

Not since “Pilotwings 64” for Nintendo 64 has a console flight sim offered as many missions or as much variety as “Sky Odyssey.”

The main game asks players to find the legendary Tower of Maximus, which is accomplished by completing a series of short-hop flights that get increasingly difficult. Each flight generally comes with some sort of side mission attached--from refueling in mid-air to finding lost ruins.

But the real beauty of “Sky Odyssey” lies in missions that seem to go on forever. Briefings before each takeoff explain the course ahead and its idiosyncrasies. Sometimes, it’s frightful air currents. Other times, it might be steaming-hot geysers that shoot hundreds of feet in the air.

But given the graphic capabilities of PlayStation 2 and the fact that its discs can hold seven times the data of conventional CD-ROMs, the visuals in “Sky Odyssey” are not as impressive as they should be.

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Aaron Curtiss is editor of Tech Times.

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The Skinny

Title: “Sacrifice”

Genre: Real-time strategy

Price: $45

Platform: PC

System requirements: Pentium II 300 with 128 MB of RAM, 650 MB of available hard disk space and a graphics accelerator with at least 8 MB of video RAM

Publisher: Interplay

ESRB rating: Mature

The good: Beautiful scenery, imaginative scenarios

The bad: Quirky interface

Bottom line: Very nice

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Title: “Sky Odyssey”

Genre: Flight simulator

Price: $50

Platform: Sony PlayStation 2

Publisher: Activision

ESRB rating: Everyone

The good: Lots of missions

The bad: Graphics not up to snuff

Bottom line: Lots of fun

*Entertainment Software Ratings Board