For example, if you strip an RPG classic like Baldur's Gate back to its raw essentials, you'll see that it's little more than a six unit RTS with an AD&D plot. Contrariwise, the Freedom Force games included statistics and the improvement of character abilities, but were so light on actual story and dialogue choice that they never really became true RPGs; they were always more inclined towards the high-octane thrills of a combat-centric RTS. There's always been a closer relationship between RTS and RPG games than fans of either genre would care to admit, either hiding behind impenetrable statistics or repetitive housekeeping tasks (like base-building or resource gathering) in their devotion to one of the two. True genre hybrids are rare indeed, so I was somewhat sceptical when I was presented with SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars, since it claimed to be exactly that. You can imagine my surprise then, upon playing the game, when the hype actually turned out not to be just the usual hype...