The two gaming genres chiefly responsible for reducing your chances of 'getting out a bit more' combine in one mighty time-consuming black hole with the release of SpellForce on PC. Classified as both RPG and RTS, the game presents a fantastical adventure, full of magic, mages, dark rituals and all that jazz, in which players must restore unity to a broken up world.As the far-from-simple story goes, the thirteen most powerful Mages of all time doomed the land, hurling it into an endless spiral of chaos and despair. Continents shattered like glass, the pieces strewn about like leaves in the wind. Huge armies, bound by the power of ancient runes, brought war and destruction to the lands that survived the initial onslaught. All that was left were a few islands, connected by magic portals. A few years after the end of the Convocation, the evil returns to finish what was started. But there is hope...The game itself does at first seem like your average strategy game, in the fact that combat generally focuses on tactical play and resource management, and the overall concept sees various different races (human, elf, troll, dwarf, orc) all battling for control. Where SpellForce differs however, is with the introduction of the aforementioned RPG elements. You start out by creating your central character, distributing skill points and abilities from an extensive list, which includes a host of different combat abilities and sub-classes of magic. Also, the way the game is laid out means that various different quests can be completed, aside from the normal RTS missions, which can subsequently affect the evolution of your game.Another notable aspect to the game is the way in which it all takes place within a persistent world. As well as featuring full day and night cycles, this also includes a system that allows you to move around between different settlements and have them carry on gathering resources and operating as normal of their own accord. Which makes a bit of a change from your average system and means you can devote more time to your own particular character's story.Overall, developer Phenomic's ambitious idea to blend the two popular genres has worked out quite well, offering enough familiar elements to appease fans of both, but also introducing a few new unique ingredients to the mix.