I remember back in the day..

Back when game developers were required to complete games before they released them. Back when if they left a glitch in the game when they released the game, it stayed that way. Back when developer's took time to finish making the game before putting the game on shelves. Many people would say that the cultivation of the internet is one of man's greatest triumphs, but in this regard, it most certainly is not. Nowadays company's are just pushing games out as soon as they can to start making money, figuring they can just patch whatever needs to be fixed later. And it's a shame, because when you buy a game, you buy it to play it, not to get stuck 30 minutes in because of a simple overlooked trigger failure, ultimately causing you to wait a week for them to release a patch for it.

 Elemental - War of Magic is the golden example of how bad this has gotten. This game was released in a condition where it would crash every 5-30 minutes. Even when it's not crashing, the framerate is extremely choppy considering how poor the graphics are. The campaign isn't very user friendly, and half the time doesn't tell you where you're going. There are also other smaller bugs that could have easily been addressed. They didn't even bother to put their multiplayer servers online for release.

     And it's a shame too, because I really enjoy this kind of game. It's reminiscent of Heroes of Might and Magic III which used to be my favorite game before the innovation of 3D graphics. The freeplay mode has an solid concept where you start out as a small nation and slowly build up your forces with nearby resources until you can either acquire more through force or diplomacy, eventually expanding all over the world. The maps can be very expansive and the in-game editors are also a plus. There's three, one for overall map editing, one for building structures, as in making your own custom building, and one for making your own special effects. What do you want to happen when you cast a spell? I want a phoenix to rise up and set the area on fire, so bonus points to whoever makes that. After playing a freeplay session for several hours, even on the medium size, I still barely scratched the overall map.

Cartographer's Map - I couldn't fit it all on one screen.

Tile Editor - Build your own castle, if you want.

Particle Editor - Add your own effects.

     To this game's eternal credit, I believe it may be a better game when the patches come out. The campaign wasn't my cup of tea, but the freeplay and multiplayer seem like they may offer a couple dozen hours of gameplay. Even through the crashing, I find myself continuously booting the game back up. Even if there are frequent crashes, the auto-save is even more frequent, so I don't usually lose much progress at all. If you were thinking of trying this game out, I'd wait a little bit, check some forums for updates on multiplayer servers and stability patches.