Throttlecock's Amazing Game Reveiws

Lords of Everquest

Well, I have to say, I do get some sort of sick enjoyment out of makeing it known that my opinion weighs so much more than the average gamers. So while not double my pleasure and double my fun by being.. a critic!!. I know.. I know.. whats more loveable than a critic. Someone whom is usually ill-informed and so vain and conceited that they wont for one sec admit that they are ever wrong in a reveiw unless threatened with legal action... ah yes, now thats the life for me.

I could try to wow you with my various acedemics that allow me to pass judgement on such a grand scale as to encompass the entire community of all gamers. I actually did an enthnography on gaming as a culture once... I am sure I qualify as a big enough nerd, and a gamer, to make at least a half arsed attempt at my first offical game reveiw. Besides, nerd or not, my wife to be's jubblies could crush your skulls with a single bat. So I still feel awesome, and thats what's important.

But I am rambling again, and as much as the song rambling man is indeed a post mark to many a young fellow's life style, I must digress to more basic things, namely.. graphics.

Graphics

- Hmmm, I have to say that the grapics are really good overall. They have a slightly washed out look to them, a lot in common with the old 'Empires: Dawn of the Modern World'/'Empire Earth' updated engine. The modeles are fairly complex, and when you zoom in on them are nicely detailed in the intricate ways that show some love was put into the design, or at least some time. The game starts to slack though, when it comes to eye candy. The explosions, the spells, the auras... all of them are very bland, and nothing really nice to see. This leaves a bit of a void when compared to the wonderful job of multiple animations that the designers did. The unit animations are very well detailed, and the different battle animations really add a nice flare to any fray. All in all, I would give it a 7/10, as the lack of really good eye candy kinda shows.

Sound

- The sound can make a good game great. Even bad everything else can actually get drowned out(literally) by the sounds in game and really impress people. The sounds of LoEQ are good, but not great. The battle sounds are nice, the background and ambient sounds are good as well. But a lot of units really lack the impact and feel for their weapons in the sounds of the game. The battles dont really come alive for me at least, but the background music is nice for the Eldaar Alliance. I am going to have to go with a 6/10 for trying, but not really giving me anything to talk about.

A.I/Multiplayer

This is where the game suffers and dies. This is what kills it from being a memorable game. Its really a shame, but you still have to include a good single player game if you include any single player elements. The computer A.I. is pretty decent, but uses the same couple of strategies over and over, no matter ths skill level. That was not to bad, the pathing was though. The pathing needs a lot of work still, and hopefully will be addressed in months and patches to come. The multiplayer gets its hit because of bad freaking design and bad luck. The setup for multiplayer is very similar to Warcraft3, but unfortunately, the don't have the community war3 did when it launched. Needless to say, it often goes to have almost NOONE playing this game. I really have only player 3 multiplayer games, because of lack of a community. There are people player, but because of the interface, as soon as a game begins, they are no longer counted. Therefore, it appears like noone is online, and so everyone else gets offline and plays. Kind of a nasty downwards spiral that has cursed this game. Not like online gaming was a peach by any means though, I experienced really nasty lag, and a good deal of time out during heavy play. I give it a 4/10.

Gameplay/Fun

Ahhh, the meat of the argument and article. This is what ultimately matters, right? right? Suuure. Anway, this is what redems the game. The gameplay is solid, and while similar to Warcraft3 in construct, it is not a clone. There are a lot of innovations to alter gameplay, and the style is very different. The counter system is very rich in depth, and the hero's are no overpowering army killers. The micro management is a lot less as well due to all the abilities being autocast as needed. The times that I have played the game, I have found its quirks to be very fun indeed, and it is a good game. I would reccomened any EQ/RTS fan own this, and any person that did not care for Warcraft3 as much as they had hoped, and wanted something a little more RTS with war3 to go out and give this game a try. A score of 7/10 is a fair bet for this game.

Overall, not a bad scoring game. Just wait till I get my hands on my next one, and we shall see.