Skip to main content

The Fallen Enchantress Obama Bug


Tomorrow looks to be a fun day as the long expected Beta 4 for Elemental: Fallen Enchantress is due out.  I know what you are thinking:  isn't that the sequel to 2010's biggest gaming flop?  Well, not exactly.  To be exact, Fallen Enchantress is the ambitious stand alone expansion to Elemental:War of Magic.  That is, it aspires to become the game we all hoped EWOM was going to be before the whole thing crashed and burned, and then some!  And let me tell you something: based on Beta 3, there is good reason to be optimistic that it will succeed. 

Initially, I wasn't that optimistic - Betas 1 & 2 were merely marginal improvements on the EWOM formula at best.  However, Beta 3 surprised me with its noticeable shift in quality.  Instead of coming across as a grade 'C' Civ clone, Beta 3 made FE finally feel like its own game - and quite an interesting one at that.


There were too many changes made to be listed here, but I definitely noticed a marked improvement to the tactical combat, not to mention the game's ability to create an interesting world from scratch with each play-through.  In fact, the thing that bugged me the most about FE beta 3 was the boring city development - something that goes to show you just how improved the rest of the game had become.  I mean, with all the problems that EWOM had, the lack of interesting choices for building your cities was way at the bottom of the list for me.  So, yeah, Beta 3 showed some definite improvement.

Speaking of Beta 4 - the focus for this beta will be....city building!  Clearly, Stardock is on the same page as its gamers, which is always a good thing.  In addition to that, a bunch of new enhancements are expected all across the game tomorrow, so I am excited to give it a try.  

Here is a new gameplay vid of Beta 4 that shows you what you can expect if you are part of the Beta, or if you are just curious whether or not Fallen Enchantress will be for you when it is released later this year (after Beta 5...so more changes are coming):

 

Now, about that Obama Bug:

In the changelog for Beta 4, I found this interesting fix for a bug:


Fixed AI bug where it would tax itself to death in certain cases

Isn't that just being a liberal democrat?  What is more, if that is considered a bug in gaming, just why do we tolerate it in real life?!?  Shouldn't somebody release a patch for Obama in that case?   When are we going to get that changelog? Oh yeah, on Election Day (November 6 for Republicans and independents; November 7 for Democrats).  Ahem.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gamer's Review: Hellsing Ultimate

Is it too early to start queuing up some entertainment for Halloween?  Just a bit.  Regardless, I find myself doing just that.  Part of the reason is that summer for my region never really arrived.  Instead of the requisite heat and humidity, we were treated to largely cool, dry days.  Really, it has felt like little more than an extended late spring or early autumn.  As a result I have found myself yearning to get autumn underway as there isn't any point of continuing this useless summer.  This is why I have been looking forward to Halloween: it is THE holiday of autumn! But in addition to that, two games have recently awakened in me a love for the horror of "urban fantasy":   Shadowrun Returns , and The Secret World .  As I detailed here , those two games have hit a home run with me, and made me reconsider the whole horror genre - a genre I never particularly cared for seeing the low budget "torture porn" tripe coming out of Hollywood...
4 comments
Read more

The Catholic Sensibilities of Shadowrun Returns

"Classic cyberpunk characters were marginalized, alienated loners who lived on the edge of society in generally dystopic futures where daily life was impacted by rapid technological change, an ubiquitous datasphere of computerized information, and invasive modification of the human body." – Lawrence Person It has often been observed that Christ did not associate with the rich and powerful, but rather with the downtrodden, the rejected, the disreputable.  This is no small thing to consider, especially in a world where the glitterati continue to dominate popular culture.  Oh sure, the have-nots are often feted, sometimes even by the glittering class itself, but only ever so briefly.   Very quickly they are ushered off the stage, usually when the celebri tire of the spectacle, and are promptly forgotten until the next round of self-hating guilt bubbles to the surface of the rich and powerful's collective psyche.  Alas, such is the way of the world. Be t...
2 comments
Read more

My World War 3: The Patrol of the USS Jack

[It was inevitable.  Whenever I write about the glorious decade that was the 1980s, my mind inevitably turns to the culmination of the Cold War that occurred in the final years of that golden age (one I consider to be the last gasp of traditional America).  Fortunately for the world, that culmination was non-violent even if it could have easily been otherwise .  Of course, as an avid Cold War wargamer, it is the now speculative violent end that continues to intrigue me.  Eh, what can I do?  After all, it was the Cold-War-Turned-Hot wargames of the 1980s that formed me into the gamer I am today. With that in mind, here is an AAR of a patrol by the submarine USS Jack in the opening days of World War 3, circa 1984.  It is based on a session with Killfish Games' Cold Waters , their modern re-imagining of the Microprose sub sim classic,  Red Storm Rising .]
Post a Comment
Read more