front page of Gamespot

On Gamespot, the user reviews probably draw more weight, especially if a lot of users review it.   Those are at a 6.3, with only 380 reviews.  Everyone may want to chime in.

So I gotta say, I read the PC gamer review which wasn't terrible.  But definitely indicated that work needed to be done.  Then the Gamestop review was just horrible.  I haven't purchased yet.  Still waiting on fixes in the hopes that it will make the game closer to what it should be.

I am a big fan of GalCiv 2 and so I KNOW that Elemental can be worth the time.  Just wish that the game wasn't (to all appearances) pushed out the door before it was ready.  The good folks at Stardock make great product so I am sure something had to happen to get this type of press.  Not sure I care what it was so long as the game gets patched up to snuff.

Anyway, till then, holding off on purchasing.

And say what?

Most of the criticisms people have are by and large legitimate. What is not helping anyone are the people leaving reviews on that site that are both perfect "10s" which this game clearly is not (and there are several of these), and only saying so only makes people look foolish or like shills, and people giving it 1s out of spite for Elemental being as buggy as it is. More "Fanboi" reviews only hurt the reputation of the game and Stardock further.

Right now, Elemental should score in the 5-7 range (best case), depending on a specific customer's computer ability to run the thing. If they can't run the game at all, or their graphics can't render, less than that. Let's be honest: the AI still stinks, even at the highest levels, there are still too many imbalances for units, there are many spells and knowledge advances that do not work, and there are MANY bugs on the technical side.

No matter how much you like the game, those are fundimental problems that can't be overlooked.

There are still many problems, some of them serious, and flooding a site with inflated review scores helps no one.

I rated the game at 7.0 on my Gamespot review.

As of 1.07, most major issues have been resolved and the game is really fun.  If the game had Sid Meier's name on the box, it would be pulling 8's easily.

If you gave this a 10 you should be ashamed of yourself.

I'm not sure that I agree, my impression has been that most of the issues that cause crashes and slowdowns have been fixed, but that the game still has extremely serious gameplay, balance and AI issues which have been barely started to be addressed. Even Frogboy seems to agree with that these days.

I agree that the 10s are just b/s. I'm sorry but this game is no where near a 10.

I ranked it at around a 6.0/6.5. in a perfect world the removal of the bugs would bring this bad boy up to about a 7/7.5 IMHO.  In order for it to really shine they really need to get into the lackluster gameplay.

...chime in with their honest appraisal of the game, right?

Um...no.  Chime in with your own artist's rendering of a herd of Chick-Fil-A cows charging down the highway wearing pink panties and halting traffic.   What do you think you're supposed to post there?

I'll review it when I feel it deserves a 10 (Another month or so). IMO 4.0 is beyond unfair and i've always liked Gamespot. Owell I guess sometimes bad publicity can be good publicity just depends. Keep up the good work Stardock!! and Brad!!

If it had Sid Meier's name on it, it wouldn't be this buggy.  It still crashes for many people and a lot of things aren't working correctly.  Pull off the rose colored glasses.  While I am having fun playing it, I feel it needs a lot of love, which it seems it will get.

You never played Civ 4 1.00

I seem to recall Civ IV had a pretty bad launch with bugs, including booting problems and bad disks.

I'm dissapointed that I cannot say that the 4.0 score was unfair.   We forget so easily how unplayable the boxed version of this game is.  I'd love to see all early purchasers get a 50% discount on any expansion pack, ESPECIALLY if it is stand alone.

I'm a little surprised it got a 6.5 from users. They tend to be a little more overly critical.

Strangely enough I never liked Civ that much.  I played the original and one other.  I found Alpha Centauri much more fun and it was basicly the same formula.

Well, when I looked earlier, there were 5 "10" ratings on the front page, which is why I called those out in the eariler post in this thread.

There is no way anyone can call this game a "10" and have any credibility whatsoever. If you take those and a few other obviously overinflated ratings out of the picture, and you get closer to what it should be, by most reasonable ratings, in the 5.5-6 range.

I expect Elemental to get better with time and expansions, but right now, it is broken in a lot of places.

I do like the game, but it ain't a 10 (or 9.5 or 9...). And everone knows it, especially and including the good folks at SD.

Everyone's opinion varies of course but it seems that with 1.07 many of the stability issues have been addressed for many people.  The game is eminently playable at this time.  I'm 290+ turns into a large map and having a lot of fun.  I would not hold back purchasing at this time but it would be fair to ask in the forum first if anyone else has your particular hardware setup and how it is running for them.  From here on out there should be only steady improvements in an already excellent game.  IMHO of course, yours may vary and so be it.

People still goto gamespot??  Maybe if stardock would slip them some money like Kane and Lynch.....oohhhhh, should I go there???

I'm so glad they are still patching kane and lynch....oh wait......

Give this game some time. I would still support stardock over most companies.

Is it to much these days that people actually read offical anouncements before they post?

Unfortunately I have to agree with the bad reviews. This game has the potential to be good, but you can't rate a game on potential. Right now, the game is mediocre at best, bad at worst. Still, I am hanging in there in hopes that it will eventually blossom.

Funny, Gamespot has all 3 Galactic Civ games ranked in their top 10 turn-based games of all time, but a 4.0 for Elemental somehow makes Gamespot not a legit place for reviews?  That's convenient...

As of 1.07, the game seems to be playable.  It is, however, quite boring.  The world is bland.  The mechanics are simplistic and lackluster (or worse, depending on which mechanic one was looking at).  The AI is moronic.  I'm not familiar with the prevailing scale of the review system in question, I don't typically review games on gaming sites, and such scales are always a bit vague, but I would have guessed Elemental would rate about a 5.0 as of 1.07.  It's playable, and it's fun for the first 10-20 hours while you don't yet know how the game works.  Then it's boring.  For me at least.