Flamaster

My original review: 4/10 Bought the game on April 19, 2012, expecting most of the issues to be fixed and based on generally positive reviews for the series. I thought it would be a good place to start that's not too far back while still being relatively modern. I can see the appeal of the game immediately: it's an immersive, very beautiful game with a funky UI and great story-telling. I've played it for about 2 hours now. HOWEVER, it gets MASSIVE low points for VERY VERY VERY bad control set-up. I'm not against innovative controls, or controls that work both on the PC and on consoles. Skyrim is a good example of that - you feel that the controls were made to be console-friendly, but they're never inhibiting your game play. This game, however, made controls not only un-intuitive, but also very difficult to understand, having to go through menus to understand which button is the 'Head', the 'Open Hand', the 'Armed Hand', and the 'Feet'. None of this is explained in the game itself. NONE. The color-coding presumably makes it easier for console players to understand, but doesn't work at all for the PC. Do yourself a favor and buy the console version of this title. This is a bad port. After finishing the game: 8.5/10. You basically have to memorize the different key bindings and get through the first bit to learn the controls. Don't be mislead by my high score - the controls are the single most annoying thing in this game. It's a set of 4 basic controls, which change if you right click the mouse, and then you have to execute sequences of them to do many things... and the game decides that it would be fun to make you do some harder sequences as the game goes on. If you look past that, however, the game is very deep, has multiple meaningful side quests, and is generally a fantastic game. Music is phenomenal. If it's possible, I would recommend you play this with a controller.

This game is an interesting blend of MMO and RTS. The graphics are cartoony without being too silly, the RTS part of the game is solid (which can be expected **** that comes from a rich RTS background). However, the pieces that make it an MMO don't necessarily add to the experience. And the fact that the 'levelling' still takes quite a bit of time makes the game become a bit boring quickly. The missions try to be varied, but due to how slow you progress between the ages it's a bit redundant: how many times can we go and build boats to destroy the other side's fishing vessels? On the flip side, when you do get to the next age, you get a boatload of new features that you may or may not use; perhaps introducing them gradually would have been a better approach. It's an interesting concept, but perhaps one that isn't as good in practice. I wound up playing for about 10 hours, and buying the whole version due to the sale. I didn't experience a big difference and quit shortly thereafter - I should have stayed free-to-play.

This game is a 10/10. The story is immersive, the graphics beautiful, the game play and combat system very cool and skill-based. I tried to complete as many quests as possible and leveled fairly high and yet I never felt that the enemies were too easy to kill, so they scale well with you. The extra content post-release shows how much this company cares about the games they create. The new 10 GB content pack released a few days ago proves that. Incredible. Well worth the money spent.

Very very cool game, very innovative system of creating your own spells. It felt a bit button-mashy at first, but that soon fades and the appeal of creating your own spells to reflect your play style comes through. Play defensively using the defensive spells, very aggressively with minimal defence, or heck, try to fight your way in hand-to-hand combat if you like (though that's not recommended as you're a wizard). It's amazing and a steal at $10. Just finished the single-player, now picked up the 2nd expansion.

Excellent game. I was new to the series when I started and got hooked. It could use a little more polish in introducing new players to the game, or to introduce some game mechanics - especially those who haven't played the previous version. Campaign does a good job of explaining most mechanics, but for a game as deep as this one it could have done more. For that, I give it a 9/10. Most critic reviews I've read accurately reflect this game, more so than others.