French review of Elemental » Forum Post by TheProgress

Google Translated:

Quoting Review,

At the heart of Elemental: War of Magic is a simple idea and interesting mix of management at the Civilization and fighting in the Heroes of Might and Magic universe in a fantasy to give birth to a potpourri somewhat reminiscent (many) Master of Magic . So we end up lost in the middle of nowhere with a starting unit (our hero) and a world to win the war by as much as by economic expansion. Build the city, raising armies fully customizable units, gain levels through the ranks and walk slowly toward the borders of other civilizations in the corner, a concept which, on paper, clearly could entice fans of this kind of sweetness.

Unfortunately, Stardock has strayed once more and we are laying a game extremely soft, completely unbalanced (it will take an army of melee units to eliminate not even a magician), who never crawl at the bottom its few good ideas, can not match even one of its many models and offers more bugs than interest. Oh yes, and it's very very ugly too. The icing on the cake mold is a multiplayer mode, which simply is not available despite his presence in the main menu while the game is on sale since the beginning of the week. We will follow the advice of Brad Wardell - CEO of Stardock - who recently said: "To all those who say [...] that the game is barely worthy of a beta and well, do not touch our Playgroup future. I consider it ready for its release and if you disagree, do not buy our games. " No risk, Brad.

Score: 3/10 (Bad)

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Google Translated:

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seems the french don't like it very much (google translator ftw )

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Quoting Pantasd,

reply 3

seems the french don't like it very much (google translator ftw )

No for some reason copy/paste from a google translated page actually copies the french text AND the english a mangles them, not just the translated text Anyways, I fixed it.

It's a terrible review either way...there was barely anything in there of substance.

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the French only praise games with complex retreat & surrender options.

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First paragrah says on paper the ideas look good, a mix of civ and HOMM, with customizable units.

2nd paragrah says unfortunatly, stardock once again takes the wrong road and lose themselves. by giving us a game thats completely unbalanced, for example needing an army of melee units to beat a single mage and never exploring the rare good ideas that it has. It provides for more bugs than interest. Oh and its really bad too. The cherry on top is the multiplayer mode which is not available although it is present in the main menu although the game is on sale since the start of the week. We will follow Brad's advice who declared recently "(the quote about dont buy the game)". Not a chance, Brad.

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Doesnt even talk about modding lol its like he reviews barbie's malibu playhouse

Can we ditch the bigotry and i wont paint americans as dumb self-centered ignorant bastards

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Yes i've seen it already 3/10 is close to be the worse they could give to a game, but they arent completely fair with it , its an express review he doesnt explain in details whats wrong. Basically he says its ugly , rushed , unbalanced and bugged,a melting pot of older games ideas without being better than mentioned games(master of magic , age of wonder), but he doesnt elaborate.

I disagree on the ugly part , it has a different art direction from usual fantasy but its no ugly, in fact its quite pretty.Now he test it on release day, doesnt take into account they will work hard on it to fix it,i can see they are already going in the right direction, its crashing much less, and they are working on balance.

They also dont even want to re-review it when its heavly patched, it doesnt take into account either its a smaller studio with a niche market.

Its ok they are right to have their opinion,no one like rushed games, but they have double standard, napoleon total war get superb score altough being unplayable at release and missing features, and starcraft 2 frying GPU at release day is quickly forgiven as well.

Its not a professionnal review, if you want a good french review, wait for canard pc, the test are taking at least 2to 4 pages of small character text.

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harsh but not unexpected, except perhaps by SD

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I'm not French but living there now. This is a short, factual review, disastrous for the game in France, that's for sure (depending on how many will read it though). But, it is very factual, except that they misuse the famous quote from Brad. But I don't think it is done maliciously, after everything written on the web about it. And I guess it's very tempting for a reviewer to end with something like that if he doesn't like the state of the game.

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I'm not French but living there now. This is a short, factual review, disastrous for the game in France, that's for sure (depending on how many will read it though). But, it is very factual, except that they misuse the famous quote from Brad. But I don't think it is done maliciously, after everything written on the web about it. And I guess it's very tempting for a reviewer to end with something like that if he doesn't like the state of the game.

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here is an approximative translation

At the heart of Elemental : War of Magic a simple and interesting idea: mix civilisation management and combat like Heroes of Might and Magic in a heroic fantasy universe to give birth to a potpourri reminding a little (a lot) of Master of Magic. We thus find ourselves lost in the middle of nowhere with an unit(our hero) and a world to conquer by war as much as economic expansion. Building our town, raise entirement personalisable armies, gain levels through combat and slowly march towards the border of other civilisation around the corner; a concept that, on paper, clairly could entice fans of the genre.

Unfortunuatly, Stardock screws themselves another time by birthing an extremely soft game, completly unbalanced (it takes an army of melee units to take down a mage), that never deeply explores the few good ideas it rarely has, cannot even egalise one of its models and propose more bugs then interest. Ah yes it is bland too. The cherry on the cake being the multiplayer, that is simply not available even if it is in the main menu, despite the game being sold since the start of the week. We will thus follow the advice of Brad Wardell - CEO of Stardock - that recently declared: "Brad requests that anyone who thinks so “please stay away from our games in the future. I consider it ready for release and if other disagrees. don't buy our game” No risk, Brad.

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Hi, everyone.

As a french player I want to say that though this game has issues I really like it and it shows great promises for the future.

Now about the test you mentionned... It was taken from a french gamesite called 'Gamekult' which is well known for its controversials reviews and its rough editorial line.

The review of 'Gamekult' was badly written and far too short (only two paragraphs, including one stating the infortunate reply made by the CEO of Stardock). The reviewer mentionned good ideas but never explained them once. Instead, as he thought the game was so bad it didn't deserve a full column, he wrote a 'light test'. It was totally unfair and uncalled for.

A lot of passionate strategy gamers in France follow the games developped by Stardock and let me tell you : we love them.

Yes, there is an interesting community in France who likes and supports games made by Stardock. For instance, we even got a website ( http://transgalactique.free.fr/index.html) which translates those games because most of the time they reach our country without appropriate translations. It's a huge work and they do it remarkably well. Let me put it clearly : a lot of french players are not happy with the current state of the game but are willing to support it anyway.

Now, let me tell you something we really don't like : it's called french bashing.

It's at best childish and, to be quite honest, it's getting old. I've recently browsed a couple of american websites mentionning the game (uh, PC Gamer, anyone?) and let me tell you, they weren't very forgiving in their reviews either. But when it comes to it, old 'cliché' die hard : when you don't know how to express your frustration, let's blame it on the french.

I'm well aware that this might be some 'instant joke' and I do have a sense of humour, at least I hope I do, but as I said before, the joke is getting old. You expect a fair judgement from others ? Just stop making useless comments like this one :

"the French only praise games with complex retreat & surrender options."

In case you don't know it, there are people buying the same game as yours, loving it, supporting it. They don't deserve this kind of attitude. But what do I know ? After all, to your eyes I'm probably already a stincky french coward, aren't I ?

Nevertheless, You should know better...

Regards.

P.s : Please, forgive any spelling mistakes.

All the best to Stardock. Can't wait to see Elemental turn into the awesome game it's supposed to be.

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