I just wanted to leverage a good person, and scrounge a test preview of Europa Universalis IV. Without my noticing, I became an official ambassador of Italy at MMORPG Paradox Interactive. They sent me a few games to test, proposed interview and suggested a contest. So you start with Impire.At this point, after passing the hat and then finding myself in the text that reads only those who are really interested in, I can say: Paradox will not be at all happy to know what you think. Sure, a little 'is also his fault if he would have to wait, as Impire was developed by Cyanide, whose best product was a Blood Bowl with fewer features and more bugs of the same game done in Java enthusiasts.
I tell you from now: I do not think is to argue against, I took a few days after the last time I launched the game in order to cool off, and also because the bronchopneumonia write an article is not really the very first priority. To begin with little, to make it look like a small thing, I would say that serious problems, serious, Impire only volumes are two: the interface and the lack of active break.
The interface is the culprit of most of the most heinous atrocities possible in an RTS must be accurate, clear, complete information. To Impire is not accurate because all the most important actions are based on the right, which is single-click or hold down. All too often we make a single move command or attack the interface interprets as key pressed, opening up a circular menu that obscures the view and lose valuable time. Pause, where are you? This circular menu is fundamental to all the most important things. Of these things include, for example teleport teams of monsters around the map, cast spells, perform any upgrades to the troops or give them special commands. Even with teleportation, the basis for action, things get disturbing: basically every time it is announced that the heroes are going to get the thing to do is to find the stairs that go down, attack them, then move to all ' entry and then dry the remaining heroes.All right.
That is, evil. Terrible.
Find the stairs with the 3D view is virtually impossible, it is a tiny detail that gets lost in all the rest, then you switch to the 2D top, trying to find the stairs (marked with a symbol not consistent with all other ), it teleports a team and sticks. Only when the team shows its dark symbol of the scale, then it must necessarily go back to the 3D view. Stairs can be more than one. Meanwhile, the heroes arrive, the game has it that at this point you slam them in the face all that we have and you can only do one at a time and cooldown by a few seconds, through the now infamous circular menu. He points to the floor, holding down, move the corresponding number.
Then you have to call the second team: you can not press the same point from the 2D view because it is occupied by the symbol of the team just evoked. You will return to 3D, press roughly the same area but oops, you hold on a little man, the menu shows commands that you do not need, then deadlifts, awards a point further away, unfortunately beyond the distance at which troops attack automatically, and try to give the command to attack. Oops, you've clicked on one of your men instead of those enemies, and maybe even long enough to open the menu (just for a moment, really), and the spring button and repeat. You can manage up to five teams. Get an idea.
Meanwhile, the heroes are brutalizing the first team but not you noticed that all the units are small and scuuuuuuure piiiiiiiiccole small dark brown, to have any kind of feedback on their troops or holding down the space bar that shows the d 'energy obscuring everything else or when you open the management screen of the teams, however, is cumbersome as a whale in a can of tuna. If only the interface had been better there would have been no problem, of course. If there had been the least active break would certainly lost a lot of unnecessary frenzy leading at times but they would avoid one thousand unnecessary frustrations, and maybe you would play with a zoom greater because, on balance, the zoom does not help nothing.
Even look at the graphics because it is not worthy to be watched closely. The animations in general are nothing worthy of mention, those humanoids are just terrible. You notice in the cutscene game engine built with: movements and awkward, which I did not think it would give me so much trouble, mouths do not move. I play the roguelike, recently came to me even curiosity about the Infocom text adventures, but something like that in a modern product ... Heck, it is a technology that uses the large since the time of Half-Life, which, moreover, had a real lip to follow. See a game with modern graphics are stylized and mouths drawn with the pen makes me weird.
Sound without infamy and without praise, reciting texts recited by dogs and dogs humor ... I my humor ... Imagine the scene: cabaret with red brick wall, bull's eye from above, there's this guy on the stage sweaty reading from notes jokes so old and dingy that you have beaten the nursery who told them to you and the teacher will have also given a piece of candy. Those are the levels of the texts, stuff that strives in every way to make you laugh but we could never, ever. Type the beats of Berlusconi. If we conclude that the gameplay is essentially that list of horrors interface (there is not much else to do) and that the missions get tough only for the high number of clicks per minute required that some units are sold pay real money and patches that come have a tendency to make incompatible bailouts, it turns out that you can not have mercy on something that is not fun and does not do anything for fun.
Luckily I do not have the habit of putting here the votes otherwise dear friend PR would have already kicked kicked.
And I wrote this entire article without mentioning Dungeon Keeper!
