OK. I purchased this title after declining to be in the official testing team due primarily to time issues and more importantly an utter lack of interest in this kind of game. I purchased it because SD is that cool and I wanted to help insure the alliance with GPG was very successful. For what it is worth any company that teams up with SD will always get my money. With that said...
I purchased the title without any prior knowledge of it other then what I read from various pimps on the SD forums and seeing a few images via a trailer. I did not spend any time looking into the mechanics, UI, player system, access, requirements - nothing.
Yesterday I finally had some time free and decided to give it a shot. You guys have no idea how many games I have purchased and never played but I digress... I figured I would try an experiment with this title. Given I hardly knew anything about it and had only negative expectations, I wanted to see what it would offer me if I approached it with an open mind and total noobness regarding operations and game play.
It took me about five minutes to figure out the current set up options and configuration settings. I found everything to be rather intuitive in this regard. There were some issues with the character selection and the screen itself but overall given it is a beta I don’t think things were bad at all.
After setting up a game and assigning a single regular AI to play me mono on mono I started the game. I was impressed with the majesty of the playing field and the fidelity of the units and their animation for the current stage of development.
When the game started I took a few minutes to orient myself to the layout and the different structures. I also spent some time watching the reinforcements doing battle. Shortly after, I jumped into the fray and well I got my ass handed to me - soundly, in what is likely record time. On that note, I must say that I found the death effect to be very well done and imaginative. I also think the avatar sound effects throughout the battles a nice touch to boot.
After respawning I took the time to try to get some gear and potions and decided to fight on my side of the line for some time. After leveling up a few times and improving my base I jumped back in the thick of things again.
Well, imagine my surprise when I found the experience to be riveting and wholly enjoyable. To make a very long story short, the first game lasted over an hour and I think I learned much about the title and found it very accessible once I learned out about specific game mechanics and actions.
Today I tried it again and set up a full boat of AI players on normal and the game lasted nearly two hours! I was not tired nor bored by the end; in fact I was ready for some more action. However the game crashed on me as I was changing screens looking at the score and other details. The error was an out of memory error. I was amazed to say the least given I have four (4) GB of super fast RAM in the 64b system but then this is still in beta.
Tomorrow is another day and I will try it again with all the AIs on the hardest setting. Throughout the game play I found the heroes to be somewhat unbalanced but then I chalked it up to my uber noobness. On a related note, I kept having flashbacks of hundreds of DOTA games during my wayward misspent early post grad school years. I still don’t know if that is a good thing or bad...
My closing thoughts are that this title will be a resounding success if the current product is a sure sign of its final direction and I fully expect this title receive a few GoTY awards next year.
