2004's SpellForce: The Order of the Dawn was a potent blend of real-time strategy and role-playing that was hampered a bit by some lackluster pathfinding and control issues. Now, the series returns with SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars, and developer Phenomic has certainly learned from experience. SpellForce 2 shows strong signs of improvement while keeping the unique mix of gameplay relatively intact, and the result is a real-time strategy game that feels more like an action role-playing game. Or is that an action role-playing game that feels more like a real-time strategy game? It's hard to define SpellForce 2, but it's certainly a nice change of pace from the real-time strategy rut.