Gamespot Review is Up

Wow... brutal.

PC Games in the 4 range - at least it beat out Woody Woodpecker Racing & Battlecruiser 3000 A.D.

This game has just been a disaster =/

Kevin Van Ord is a crap shoot of a reviewer though. He blasted Alpha Protocol, a game that was super fun to play but definitely had its issues. And yet he loved Mafia II, a game that has gotten scores all over the board.

Not saying he isn't a good reviewer but like so many in the business a bit arbitrary.

I have been critical of Elemental myself and still don't see how you could possibly give it a 4.0. That's just ridiculous.

He has legitimate complaints though. Awful UI, multiplayer STILL not turned on, crashes etc.

I think its a bit low but I am not surprised. I woud give the game a 6.5/10 after the 1.07 patch before that even lower so 4/10 is feasible. The good news is that SD is committed to the game so hopefully within the quarter we will have a much improved game.

A 4.0 is harsh. 

5.0 or 6.0 maybe, but not 4.0.

Did you read the review and then determine what the score should be?

Scores don't really matter, just read what the guy has to say and see if you agree or disagree.

Well, actually, Elemental deserves any grade in the 4.0 - 7.0 range. It depends on what you're ready to forgive, how much importance you give to the potential, and so on. I can understand someone unwilling to compromise and really irritated by the game could give it a 4.0, and such a feeling is perfectly justified - it's a $50 AAA-priced title after all.

If Stardock manages to implement the entire (almost) list of suggestion and fixes that BoogieBac posted on the Dev Journals subforum, this game might deserve an 8-9.0. It will require rethinking some mechanics from the ground up though (shards, for instance, or the battles/stats).

Work out bugs,

Re-work mechanics (tactica, magic, etc)

Balance, Polish, Balance, Polish

Add rich content, lots and lots of content...while trying to also capture that ever elusive "charm/character" that the games
we love all have.  It's all in the details, no part of the game should feel like someone took a shortcut.

Then re-release it (expansion/whatever) - call it "Elemental war of Magic: Redemtion Edition"
have people review that, then it can be the epic story of the game that was a 4/10 that climbed its way to 10/10

Good news is this is exactly what stardock seems to be doing so far, hope they don't loose the fire.  I couldn't play it past my 3rd game  but am still following the forums as I find the path this game is taking to becoming a better game facinating.  I don't think I've read a single post that says "I hate this game I hope it fails"  everyone wants it to do well.

Cheers. 

Unfortunately, it looks like they are going to juggle features around again (Magic) before they polish and balance.

This game gets a new look every couple of weeks with no regard to synergy between components or fixing game stopping bugs.

The review gives very little opinion and is mostly a list of all the things that don't work; the score is justified.

If you care to do something positive, instead of being passive echoes of one Gamespot reviewer's opinion -- and that's all it is, a personal opinion -- please vote on Gamespot, granting a higher user-rating.

It often happens, on Gamespot, that the aggregate user-score is much higher than the official reviewer's score -- who is just one guy, with his pseudo-expert opinion.

EDIT > Because of reply #15, I remove an incorrect information I had given in my original post. It seems that this particular Gamespot reviewer has effectively played the game somewhat extensively. (My use of the word "somewhat" is a skeptic's warning : How many full hours of focused gameplay did he really put in ?)

Come on, this game is at least 6.0-6.5 review worthy. Honestly it would probably be getting 7.0 if it ran smoother. Just proves my point to never base a purchase on a review.

4.0 might be arsh, but I, for one, would find difficult to give more than 5 (that's a personal statement) as of now (1.7)

It has been said a million times but they are two main areas with huge problem:

technical: sluggish and buggy, but this is being ironed quite quickly; and I personally can play a buggy and sluggish game when the content is great. Someone mentionned Alpha protocol, well as cumbersome as it was I did also greatly enjoy it. This brings us to the catastrophe that is the second shortcoming;

Content: 20 quests, 60 spells, 60 techs, 10 units (and I am being nice), when most people, I think, at least I did, were expecting more like 100 quests, 200 spells (am being low here), 200 techs and 50 units (and this was a minimum, not withstanding "personal design" which is a joke)....

I recall in Beta (2A, I think), Brad saying that all the game needed was bug squashing and that all the tremendous content would be unveiled with the gold edition. well, we got what? 2 more map seeds...

Anyway:

to me, if the content remains the same but with zero bug and great performance --> 6.5/10

Boost the content to a MOM/Dominions 3 level --> 11/10

I will never ask for a refund (am too late anyway lol) and I dearly hope that all the content I hope for will one day arise. However when Brad (again) tells us, that (content speaking) we will get a free update with Book II of the campaign (meaning we may have to pay for book III... yeah, sure..), I could not care less. Just let me use the campaign map as I wish, the story is bad anyway. I am very afraid that the funds aimed at developing more content will be diverted for such foolish errand as developing what is he campaign today.

regards to all, sympathy to the fired staff, hope we all find the silver lining soon enough..

I do place a fair amount of trust in gamespot reviews which at least for me, have been fairly on the mark the vast majority of the time.  I will still ultimately get Elemental (although the review certainly pushes back my time frame to at least the end of the year) but it would be the first sub-5 gamespot reviewed game that I have every bought.

Actually, if you read the article, it is pretty obvious the guy played the game extensively, on 4 different machines even.

I think they reviewed version 1.0 

How would manipulating numbers be positive?

Just vote in your conscience. If the game gets better, the user score will go up, period. As of now, many people are doing what you advice, and they appear little less than Fanboys, giving 9.0s or 8.5s. The true friends are the one telling you you are under-performing when you indeed are, not he ones rubbing your back and telling you you are great when you are about to eat poo...

this is exactly what caused this catastrophe... nobody at stardock was able to walk up to Brad and make him understand it would be a terrible mistake to release the game as it was. We, beta testers, also share this responsibility, even though we fought hard to make him understand.

He now recognizes his mistake, too bad it puts some people on the street.....

I hope later (if the gam is "cured") the most popular gamesites will give it a new shance, a new review.

Im thinking the only way now to get good reviews, is either a re-launch or when stardock release the expansion make sure its 100% perfect, therefore getting really good reviews that will hopefully counter the bad reviews from launch. All is not lost for Stardock.

By the way there is no way i'd rate this game so low, yes it has bugs, some flawed gameplay, and very poor performance issues but overall its a very good game, that im enjoying playing.

yes they do. if it didn't matter it wouldn't be there.

I have no trust at all in any review site with a track record of pulling reviews and re-posting them with better scores as a result of pressure from their advertisers.  Not to mention posting excessive scores in the first place to prevent that happening.  Gamespot has had zero credibility since Jeff Gerstmann got fired; sites such as 'Out of Eight' are much more valuable IMHO.

That said, this particular review is accurate enough.  The score is a notch or two to low to be consistent with reviews of total garbage I've seen there scoring fives and even sixes.  Stardock should have sent more advertising dollars their way....

Nope, he mentioned 3 patches. So it must be 1.06. Which makes sense since it's the only patch that lasted almost a week.

i've never took much stock in gamespot's review's for the simple fact that they have gave really bad score's to game's that i found to be very good
and for the longest time it seemed that the only game's that would get a good review was game's that EA had put out. 

Still, all points in review are valid. Although score could be better.