I must confess, I wasn’t expecting one of the best reviews of Fallen Enchantress to come from PC Gamer let alone Tom Francis. Which isn’t to say I don’t think he’s a good reviewer, he is. But PC Gamer’s Tom Francis was the avatar for those who were deeply disappointed in our first attempt at creating a fantasy strategy game back in 2010 (that game, Elemental: War of Magic).
Deep down, I had hoped PC Gamer would assign Tom to review Fallen Enchantress. I thought it would be inappropriate to explicitly ask PC Gamer to assign our biggest critic to review the game that represents Stardock’s revisit of this genre. But they did and he did.
The result, I admit, is shock. Not only did PC Gamer give Fallen Enchantress a positive review, he gave it an very positive review. It’s not that I didn’t think we’d get a fair review, I just didn’t think Fallen Enchantress could overcome the negative impression War of Magic gave many people.
I agree with the review, even on the criticisms (I don’t generally like scenarios, they’re like a checkbox these days but Fallen Enchantress is designed to be played as a sandbox game).
Read the review here: http://www.pcgamer.com/review/fallen-enchantress-review/
Makes us very excited what comes next!
And that reason was internal disagreements between Spectrum Holobyte (who had bought Microprose a year before MoM was released) and Microprose, leading to financial cuts, and the departure of key top management folks like Steadley. And when MoM was released in 1994, so was the first XCOM, leading SH to put much of the subsidiary's budget for development behind sequels. MoM 2 wasn't made because of bugs in the original that led to pans. Yeah, it had poor AI, but it played well, and got a lot of thumbs up along with the thumbs down. On balance, it was reasonably received, even upon initial release.
Now, you want to talk about a game that was nearly unplayable upon release, consider Microprose's Darklands. Went through an unheard of (at the time) 8 patches. But it had a beautiful concept and a brilliant working out of its ideas, and received a lot of positive reviews while noting its problems.
Grats. you deserve it.
I wish we can cheer your sales and money too.
How is it going in that department?
I see steam is constantly showing you in second row on first pages...which is good since you were publishing FE long ago (and many hits were published since then!)
They are right MOM was broke as hell version 1.0. Even with it's latest official release it was not balanced. Wanna see, grab some paladins and drop a few buffs on them. Proceed to roll.
Here's the difference between DOS (win3.1) and winXP games - Everything was new! the medium was new, the ideas were new. MOM, XCOM, Dune II etc. This stuff had never been done before. You can't get that feeling today because most games are derivative. But i ask, is that really so bad? So are movies, art, music. Sometimes derivative means taking what works and making it better.
I fondly remember the old games but I also enjoy the new ones. Unless you lived through the torment of using Kali (LAN emulator) and specialized boot files to play Warcraft II multi-player, please don't tell me how great it used to be.
For a second I was thinking you meant the torment of using "Kali" in MoM... head scratching moment. I think its great that PC Gamer still exists, and that you got an 85... but that article is a little sparse. I guess its the equivalent of a 2 page spread in a magazine, which is not bad, but after reading so many wall of text posts by players and devs in the forums I am spoiled.
LOL, ah yes Kali. Wonder whatever happened to Jay Cotton. Haven't heard anything about him in ages.
Cool! A good score from a reputable publication is always a good thing!
What do you suppose the odds are that Tom Francis will get picked to review the first expansion?
I remember KALI and it was GREAT back then.
Frogboy's reservations about reviews are pretty much spot on, given the nature of the reviewing industry. (Yup, it's one of those industries.)
The fact that Fallen Enchantress got such a good review despite it's predecessor only serves as a testament to how preservation can overcome any obstacle. I'm glad you guys didn't just dump this intellectual property like so many other companies would have. The premise was great, and the polish made it shine. Props to Frogboy and Kael especially.
I managed to get my friends to play games like Sword of the Stars II and Elemental: War of Magic regardless of the bad reviews that initially scared them off. Both were broken beyond compare at release, and both gradually became great games worthy of playing. Most of them loved both games, some, who were too enamored by the poor reviews wrote the games off without giving either a chance. Neither game got updated reviews despite becoming fun - and those first impressions will hamper both games and their intellectual properties forever. (The reason you see so many "Special Editions" come out is so reviewers are forced to re-review the "new" game. Many companies, including Stardock also have the habit of releasing franchise titles under different names to avoid the stigmata of older, poorly reviewed releases. It's the only way they can get a fair chance.)
It's just a shame people still put stock into over inflated pay-for-play review scores, and see anything rated average or below average by a corrupt industry as unworthy of even trying. Little do they know how few of those "great" scores are actually great, and not just another form of purchasable advertising.
Even broken when it came out MOM turned out to be the best fantasy strategy game ever made so far. They didn't take 3 years to fix it either.
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