Izlude

There are moments of fun to be had here, but it's clear Elemental was developed without any sort of formal design methodology or prototyping. The erratic and frantic nature of the last few patches make this clear. Fundamental and sweeping changes of core mechanics in the last two beta cycles and even as recent as the day-0 patches are a dead give-away that Elemental's core gameplay was most likely not planned. Where the rest of the game industry plans and prototypes the core mechanics of new titles, **** very obviously subscribes to a school of thought that revolves around some sort of agile design philosophy. I'd be willing to bet that a lot of the features that separate Elemental from its spiritual predecessor Master of Magic (dynasties, diplomacy, quests) started with the sentence "Wouldn't it be cool if...". Outside of some rare strokes of genius, this methodology very rarely makes for engaging and deliberate design decisions. Design aside, a lot of the flaws in Elemental's core mechanics are overshadowed by it's dated UI and it's amateur production values. So many of the user interface problems that plagued **** previous title, Galactic Civilizations 2, are present in Elemental. The user interface does a poor job of communicating information to the user and is very unwelcoming to new users. Aesthetically, Elemental's user interface appears very dated to me. Small touches that make modern user interfaces visually pleasing, such as transitions and animations, are noticeably absent from Elemental. The use of modal dialog boxes is especially rampant in Elemental, as it was in Galactic Civilizations 2, and is very reminiscent of Windows productivity and office software; this isn't how a modern PC game should feel. There are better ways to notify and ask for feedback from the user.