Elemental is a new game, not a sequel, and in total is comparable to the original Galactic Civilizations. It’s not the pure digital awesome that Galactic Civilizations II was (which was released three years after its predecessor). The game is finished for release as well as most any game has been in the last twenty years. It does lack the sort of polish that most sequels have.
As far as I can remember, few original games have been mind-blowing, surpassing even their sequels. There was Fallout and X-Com, and that’s about it. Before Baldur’s Gate II, there was the decent (but not amazing) Baldur’s Gate. Before Starcraft, there was the excellent Warcraft II, and before that the milquetoast Warcraft.
All the malice being tossed about is a bit unwarranted. Certainly not the worst case of oddly excessive vitriol (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKzF173GqTU) , but is a bit over the top. I didn’t encounter any show stopping bugs, though some did. And today, three days after its official release, those bugs have been fixed. No one’s fifty dollars depreciated that much over three days. Overall, the release is decent. As many have discussed, Elemental’s release is far better than the industry’s worst (Master of Orion 3, Empire: Total War, Daikatana) and doesn’t deserve the verbal massacre that it has received of recent. As everyone likely knows, though, “deserve’s got nothing to do with it.”
Starcraft II, to which Elemental has lately been compared, is more polished, sure. Starcraft II is also the fifth game in Blizzard’s RTS ‘craft’ series, which began in 1994. They’ve had a bit of time to polish the formula. From Gamespot’s review of the original, “It all comes down to this: Starcraft may not do anything particularly new, but it does the real-time thing as well or better than any game before it. If you're willing to give the formula another go, Starcraft is highly recommended.” The same goes for the sequel. Starcraft II’s polish is largely due to the fact that it does nothing new – the underlying mechanics haven’t changed in fifteen years.
The overall quality of Elemental’s release is roughly equivalent to the original Galactic Civilizations. Elemental is stable. There are some gameplay bugs, and there are a number of rough spots that need to be smoothed and polished. And as we all know, they will be.
Should one buy the game now? It depends on the person. Personally, I’ve had a lot of fun digging for game exploits, hanging out in the chat rooms and talking about the wacky stuff that can happen. I’ve been playing games for years, and I think that’s part of the fun of a launch. Some might not; some might want to wait for it to be buffed and polished with every feature and function glistening like chrome – and that’s OK. If so, then keep an eye on the site and wait until it gets there. And if one likes to be a part of the buffing and polishing, diving into the game to find those rough edges and getting involved in suggesting (or creating) features, then give it a go – there is a very strong community and developer involvement.
My thoughts are that Elemental is fun. It’s not mind-blowingly amazing like I had hoped for – but I’m happier for having it now instead of February. I liked Warcraft, I liked the first Galactic Civilizations, and the first Baldur’s Gate. And I like Elemental.
What made galactic civilizations, baldurs gate good is that they were good games from the start. there sequels didnt back track. Elemental is not a genre breaking game and when you are going to make a game in a specific genre such as 4x civ game, you look at whats conisdered the current bench mark and then decide to either copy or expand not retract.
make no mistakes, when looking at this game you should look at masters of magic and age of wonders and civilization. all those games had units that had purposes such as horses with charge, spears that did more tdamage to horses.
elemental said screw that lets go super simple.
Elemental has a fantastic overland map, ok tech tree, but poor spell tree and combat. Remember stardock tried to buy the rights to masters of magic thank god they didnt becuase they would of ruined it. TBS people like in depth strategy. And Stardock even said they wanted there tactical battles to be like masters of magic.
Dynansties dont ofer that much except to keep your daughters spinsters.
And as far as starcraft is concern the overall mp gameplay may be not that great but I think the campaign is fantastic and I cant remember a campaign in any rts that polished and with missions that are unique and fun and I have played them all.
I disagree. Elemental aims to add RPG attributed to a TBS. Purchasing equipment for heroes, going on quests and the marriage system, all combined, make the game pretty unique.
Its just a pity that currently there is more work to be done balancing the different components. When the balance tightens up the game will be wonderful. As it is I agree with the opening post, there is still fun to be had.
Ummm. No, those bugs have not been fixed. I still get mem leak crashes and there are a number of other major gameplay bugs. So please don't speak so generally.
I'm enjoying the game, but it was launched broken, very unbalanced, and with many portions of the game seemingly unfinished or never thoroughly tested or thought out.
rpg elements to a fantast tbs are somewhat standar, in homm they hadd item creation and fiting out your hero, so did mom and aow. now fitting out your actuall army is a good idea, but not giviing any type of diferentation to itmes except attach defense bad idea.
I agree, great post.
Snark, if you're saying the game is stable you are a rare lucky one. Everyone I know has been crashing regularly and having steady decreases in performance. I have yet to finish a random game without a crash to desktop and I'm on 1.06.
I agree with OP.
Well, Elemental tried to be genre breaking by throwing a bunch of random, cool, mutually destructive concepts into the game and then stripped down the things, like tactical combat and magic, that the players really wanted to see.
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