A company called Paradox brings you yet another paradox – how often do you find that the better graphics you give to a game the lousier the gameplay suddenly becomes?

If we’re going to examples, remember the GTA? the better they made the graphics the boring it becomes… took them 4 versions (or should I say 4 tries) to get it work somehow, and still most people didn’t really like it.

Remember the good old Heroes of might and magic? as soon as they turned 3d the game lost all the creditability, people started looking for the old versions again, or worse- they stopped playing.

Now (or to be precise – 04/12/09) another example was published to the crowds, I’ve pre-ordered it, cause it didn’t look so bad and I’ve got relatives working in few gaming companies, got a nice deal for it, and after two days of playing it I must say I’m very disappointed.

The game works almost like Heroes of might and magic, apparently they thought that they could do it better in 3D; the graphics are average at most, and much like Worms Mayhem, the 3d is actually getting in the way, making the player frustrated at the overly slow pace of the game and unable to master the keys.

The main problem in such “designs” in my opinion is that they place the camera too close to the commanded units, so you’d see their superior textures, forgetting that just like in real life APPEARANCE isn’t everything – if a game looks good, but you cant play it, whats the point? if you’d have a big map, or real combat, that require your attention throughout the map, and half of it is covered by shadows, clouds and other things, that supposed to be the “BACKGROUND” of the game, you wont see the game, you wont play it, and definitely you wont enjoy it.

What’s sad is that this game actually had the potential, they have added over 100 different units, they gave it 9 armies, 5 heroes, and even epic game endings (took me several hours to reach each), plus it has also a game editor built in.

So yea, it could’ve been another great copy of the original heroes of might and magic and join that long list (like age of wonders and such) of possible covers to the game, with its own epic ideas, but unfortunately it seems, it is yet another example (in a very different and much longer list) of how to make a good game (or software – ex: vista) suck just by just turning it into 3d in the wrong way.

Who would really want to play strategy game at grass hight?

I think I’ll just ask for my money back, so I could put it on real game.

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