Review
If you're looking for thoughts before you buy
Demigod Forums
I saw this title on the shelf a little while ago, and thought the theme and gameplay had a lot of potential. Been playing for a little while now, and had to write on it.
First off, let me say I was favorably disposed to this game. I think highly of Stardock for Sins, and thought coming from the same company was a big plus. Also, I think the management of different specialized charaters on a team can make a very exciting multiplayer game. The RPG claim also enticed me.
That said, my first plays were underwhelming. I have a pc that's well above the recommended levels and plays much more demanding games smoothly. This was an awful disappointment --choppy and slooooow. In fact, it's so slow, you can notice the game bog down as armies grow. I have no idea how they coded it, but it's a disaster from a technical standpoint of smooth graphics or even playability. There are technical glitches as well, most of which I'm sure are documented on this site. I've experienced a couple glitches myself (moves that should be impossible) as well as non-technical issues (for example, I was hit by 2 rooks on at the start of a game, but you could only see 1 --they "split", which I can only assume is from 2 AI rooks using the identical opening. I really don't know what casued it.) Having a unit that can, depending on the angle, obscure much of the field, is just plain stupid IMO, although if camera movement were smooth, I probably wouldn't be concerned about it). There are a number of UI issues as well, which I assume have been talked about ad nauseum on the forums since they're so obvious.
Gameplay: Fundamentally the tower push game has been around many years, and should make for a good game. In many ways the execution is acceptable. Having only 8 characters might seem limited, but with enough variety of builds within characters, this shouldn't have been a problem. I say, shouldn't, but it has been. I admit to having limited play so far, but I find the builds to be quite uninspired. It's possible that at a high level of play, the differences become more pronounced, so I'll try to give the game the benefit of the doubt. It certainly isn't as distinct as other team games I've experienced, at least so far.
Another part of gameplay that has left me underwhelmed is the lack of back-and-forth. This isn't a game with tons of lead changes or agonizing decisions about spending your gold on something that pays off in the long run, but might hurt you short term. It's all pretty straight forward tactically as far as I can tell. Making a tower rush doesn't net you all that much or threaten your opponent until you're already in the lead. Again, there are probably some layers here I haven't seen, but a game of this caliber isn't likely to see me become an expert.
Finally, while the game claims to be a hybrid action/strategy/roleplay, the role-play elements IMO are almost too weak to mention. The character building using favor points is clumsey and unbalanced. I can think of a number of better ways to have done this --it's almost as though they took the easiest thing to implement, and just ran with it. If for example, you were to have a campaign that opened up new merchant options (not necessarily better options, but more options, with additional specialization) I think the persistant elements could have been much better. But it's one of many things I find unpolished about this title.
Overall: It's good to see a tower push game on the market. I wish this one were better done, as I'd love to see it have competitors and open up the game genre. As it is, I think I'd hold on to my $40 if I had the chance to do it over, or hope the game gets some enhancements post launch to give it some badly needed QA, and a few gameplay improvements.
Stardock Forums
