My GF bought this when it came out, I withheld my judgement until I saw her play it. We're both huge MoM fans and probably wrongly hyped us up about it being somewhat of an inofficial replacement.

So far I agree a lot with the Shacknews review. The whole feature creep makes AoW: SM a more interesting MoM-replacement not because it's a good MoM-clone or even feels similar to play, but entirely because it doesn't feel stuffed with things no one needs.

I still think Elemental looks like a good game - my GF certainly likes it - but it could have been a whole lot more if it had been less. If that makes sense.

Maybe you would still call them so, maybe not. I'm pretty sure if most reviews stated that the game is good all the peole who curse and soil the reviewers in this forum would be pretty happy and call them wise men... NO word about whores to the industry. only because they state the truth (in my opinion which originated in personal gaming experience) which is uncomfortable for all the fanboys they get even worse and throw shit on everybody who doesn't share their opinion (which is blended by fanboyism)... and that's ridiculous, even if it's normal behavoir of most people on this planet.

sorry for bad english, hope my point gets clear nonetheless.

IMHO, the shacknews comments are well thought out. So much of the game feels superfluous when all that matters is building that big military stack. The game (so far) is a simple exercise in building a strong stack of units ... with a whole ton of other bells and whistles (e.g. questing) to tempt/distract you away from this single winning strategy and give you the illusion of choice.

That's just a balance problem, though. A lot of things work better in early game then in late game because of how the numbers line up, the "if your sovereign dies in enemy territory it's game over" mechanic, and the bug that makes shards not work and thus magic not scale properly.

This is why I get annoyed when people think that "balance" really means that everything has to be identical for MP. It doesn't. It actually means that there isn't some "do this and you win" super build that nothing else can counter.

It's really quite simple. You have engineers and designers. Do not let engineers design a GUI.

cum means slash (i.e. also, along with, etc.):

so TBS cum RPG is like saying:

TBS/RPG

Who reviews the reviewers?

Batman.

Eric Neigher, the reviewer, probably wanted to slack off on his job and go to lunch early or something. Here's an indie game, almost no hype or advertising, it'll go under people's radar. So if he bullshits, no big deal, even if people notice, the backlash is not going to be huge.

What a clown...

You know, I'm not a fan of the game at the moment, I will probably email Stardock support for a refund (and buy it later if the game becomes great), but reviewers have a responsibility to play the damn games they are reviewing. This totally reinforces my belief that all these gaming "journalists" are nothing but a bunch of hacks and don't deserve to be paid for this.

EDIT: I just finished reading the entire review. I am convinced that this dumbass didn't even play the game. All the screenshots are official shots from Stardock, he never mentions any details (notice no actual unit name, faction name, sovereign name, actual quests, etc.). Basically sounds like he glanced at the Stardock forums, took a few notes and bullshitted his way into 1000 words.

From site: Elemental really is a steaming pile of bugs right now, but the incredible game within is visible even through the haze of frustration.  I cannot recommend buying as-is, but keep Elemental on your radar screen if you have even the slightest interest in the genre.  I cannot emphasize that enough.  If the innumerable bugs get fixed, and mod support truly works, then this game will be off the charts in terms of pure strategy-gaming awesome.  I'd even be able to cease pining for Age of Wonders.[/quote]

Very nicely put. Totally agree.

Agree with a D+ in its current state, too.

I'll give it a B- right now, only because I know that it is only going to get better.  Much better.

Personally, I am enjoying it.  I am very glad that they released it, particularly since Stardock seems now to be much more aggressive with their improvements and patches than they were in beta.  It has alrady ramped up greatly from Day 0.  The sky is the limit.  If it was still in beta, we would be seeing much less progression on these improvements.  Right now, they are a highly motivated team.

It's not just poor balance. The basic system Elemental uses to compute results is simply not right for the game. Balance-wise, the problem is that values have to be too low and too similar to produce a predictable result. Sadly, that problem is made worse by how simple the system is: it simply isn't enough to be interesting/compelling, and it's not just a major departure from the usual "to-hit + to-damage + to-avoid-damage" mechanics similar games have (and players expect), the simplicity makes special abilities, spells & whatnot feel boring and same-y.

As for the reviews, I really don't know what you guys expect. The game is in no shape to be reviewed yet, but Stardock shipped it anyway. Any honest review of the present state of the game has to warn people away from it with big letters, because, well, not everyone is a Stardock forum dweller with the patience of 10 saints and a wholly unreasonable willingness to pay to help beta test. You, dear reader, and I probably are exactly that. But we're neither the norm nor the audience reviews of Elemental are aimed at.

Another fair review given this time by 1up.  Everyone wants this game to be good but the reality is that in its current form it simply is not.  I'd give it a D right now, the only reason it doesn't get an F is because it has so much potential.

You are totally missing the point. And in fact, you are probably doing exactly what the reviewer did. You glanced at the information and jumped to conclusions.

We don't care about the score, I think the game deserves a lower score. The point is, the reviewers knows next to nothing about the game he is reviewing. I doubt he even played it, to be honest.

Actually READ the review, pay attention to the details given about the game. The dude didn't play the game, period.

The 1UP review is pooch-poke fest; I don't think the game was even played by that reviewer, even the screenshots are at least several months old. WTF robust multiplayer??! /roffles They ought to fire that jerk for an obvious fake review.

Overall I'm am so on the fence about what to call EWOM . potential classic vs generic shovelware at this point. The more and more I play this game the  plethora is poor designs, crashes, silly "my first video game" level bugs get me down. I dont understand how stardock could make such an amateur hour release.  However, there is a subtlly alluring and fun element to the game, but it is buried deep under pile of frustrating puckey.

Moreover the whole "we launched because we needed shelf space" argument is wearing a bit thin. Evidence is showing that a vast majority of retailers arent even stocking the game and some regions (canada, much of europe) don't even have boxed releases. It really shows very poor planning at all levels.

That being said; i hope stardock can fix this lil' baby up into something nice. It has charm; but so do ugly babies.

FR

Here is my belief:

Most of the reviewers are used to games that are very polished and very intuitive.  They are also probably used to an instruction manual and a tutorial.  Let us face this fact, right now, this game has none of the above items.  So, for the average casual gamer, this game will be beyond their understanding.  This game, as it stands, will only appeal to people who are used to playing the civilization, the alpha centaris, the MOO, the MOM, and the other 4X games already.  People who can figure out, with out the computer telling you, that your cities need work because they are only level 1 and the enemy CPU cities are level 3.  Most of us can realize, we are doing something wrong if the CPU can grow a city to level 3 but we can not and we are in an "ideal" location with food already within the city borders.

The game does lack polish in that aspect.  I just got the game last night.  I was doing well on Extreme.  Until I realized that this one enemy computer CPU had 3 cities that were 5 times my size and my two cities were still stuck at level 1.  Then i realized how to gather the resources within my influence (the clay, the fertile land, the goldmine).  The game sure did not help me much in realizing that I needed to do something to them.  I just ASSUMED (and we all know what happens when you assume) I had to research a technology or item to gather resources from that specific item.  So I was going thru the Civilization tech tree line looking for a farm to build to get to level 2 on my city.  If the game was a bit more UI intuitive or tutorial friendly, I may not have made that mistake.  Likewise, I was dominating an EXTREME NPC soverign that had 3 cities tat were level 5 and I only had 2 cities at level 1.  I could never muster enough forces to capture a city, but I kept him from leaving his, though.

There are two issues here:

Those arguing that the 1UP reviewer doesn't have a clue what he is talking about because he talks about "robust multiplayer" have a good point. That quote on its own suggests the 1UP reviewer didn't really try the game and certainly was quite happy to make stuff up and then write it down.

But those arguing that the C+ review mark given by 1UP is wrong are have rose tinted glasses. C+ seems a pretty reasonable grade to me, in fact I would be tempted to give it a C- or worse. The game just isn't finished. It appears to me that huge amounts (and I mean months) of polishing and balancing will be required to make it a good game. I fully believe it will BE a good game given enough time, but releasing it now was a mistake of incomprehensible proportions.

So the 1UP guy may well have not even played the game and just made up a score... but if so then he got lucky because it is hard to argue with that score nonetheless!

This.

You're pretty much on your own in finding credible information.  There's also that double standard where you can trash the little guys, but if some big company does the same it is okay. 

Both the reviews in the OP are 100% accurate.  I am enjoying messing around with EWOM right now, but the game is hardly finished and has tons of bugs and flaws.  In a few months I am sure it will be better, but don't hate on those reviewers because I have played EWOM a lot these past few days and they are spot on accurate with their criticisms.

100% accurate?

The 1UP review refers to a "robust multiplayer". 

We're hating on that reviewer not because the review is negative (I agree that the game is buggy and not fun atm), but because the reviewer has no clue what he is talking about.

99% accurate.  Quite getting hung up on one little point.  He obviously was in beta and played multiplayer.  Just because you have not, does not mean someone else hasn't.

Which makes me wonder - what's the point?

If a reviewer is looking at it with his/her taste - and I have my taste and if they don't match, how much value is in the review? If I don't know if I like the game or not - but the reviewer might not have my taste in games or look for what I look for, how much stock should I put in the review? There's no way of knowing the taste/what they are looking for? Is the reviewer praising it because he/she likes it or because it's actually that good that just about anyone would like it? Likewise for things that are bad.

Never mind the whole "condense the game to a single number in an arbitrary and not-even-standard number system". It's like trying to convert from metric to english units. 7 here is average, 7 there is good, 5 there is bad, etc. What's the practical difference between a 7.7 and 7.8? A 8.9 and 9.2? A 4.9 and a 5.0? Is there really any separation of quality there or just some way to try to split hairs to say which game is "better"?

And what are reviews geared to? Fans of the genre? Fans of the company's past offering? Fans of the sub-genre? "Casual" Gamers? "Hardcore" Gamers?

It just makes me wonder why it's such a review based thing when it seems like it should be a demo-based thing - i.e. demos for the gamers so gamers individually can make decisions based on actual experience with the game - especially if reviewers can't, by nature of their jobs and assignments - delve deep in to some games that might require a long investment of playtime to really get everything out of it.

Haha. You're funny.

He was in beta but makes no mention of any beta? Damn, what a good journalist. The dude clearly knows nothing about the game, read the review and you can see the generic shit pieced together from forum posts and the official site's feature list.

Reviewers don't spend their time participating in beta builds of indie games. Grow up.

I look at both the critics and the user reviews, and make a combined opinion based on that.   Sometimes they're wrong, but usually they're right.   Simply look up reviews for games you've already played and see how that compares.  I've done that, and I've confirmed that the forums hosted by the games themselves are biased.   It's not necessarily the censorship and the moderation; it's that you're getting only the people who still play the game on the site.   Stardock is wise to allow negative reviews on its own site--because I'm watching, and if I see a thread delete, that adds to my sense that the site is biased.   Allowing stuff also means that I am able to feed my input to their marketing department.   I haven't played the game.  Does that discredit everything I have to say?   No...because what's the #1 question marketing is going to ask?    "Why aren't more people buying the game"?"