Kotaku.au not impressed with Elemental?

It's Kotaku, it's not meant to have an opinion of any value.

its an indie game going up against a 500 pount gorilla (civV), most reviewers are going to see it through that lense. not much can be done about it.

besides, the game ISN'T that impressive just yet. it has great potential, but if they are reviewing with the gold version, then its probably not in great shape. most reviewers don't review based on what a game could become with proper support, they review based on what a game is at this moment. its unfortunate, and puts indie studios at a severe disadvantage since they generaly cannot afford to put in the months of polish that a big studio like Blizzard can.

best thing the community can do is to give as much feedback as possible, keep playing and keep spreading word of mouth as the game improves.

That's not a negative. That's just how they are with all the games in their article. Full article here http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/08/the-week-in-games-66/

I attach three entries as an example.

New releases for the w/c August 23:

Elemental: War of Magic (PC)
What Is It? Fantasy strategy game from the makers of Sins of a Solar Empire and Demigod, available today for download via Stardock’s Impulse store.
Should You Care? Something to tide you over until Civ V hits next month.

Legend of Kay (DS)
What Is It? Incredibly late DS post of an old PS2 action/adventure starring a sword-wielding cat.
Should You Care? The five-year-old original was decent enough and this looks… decent enough, too.

Mafia II (360, PS3, PC)
What Is It? Narrative-heavy crime and cars caper set in post-World War II America.
Should You Care? For those who want more story and less silly in their sandbox gaming.

Which is fair, because you're only guaranteed what actually comes in the box at the time of purchase.  I trust Stardock to deliver (eventually), but you really can't review a game based on "what could be".

yea, that's just them asking questions, not a review, so what's the problem?

They actually did Elemental a favor by putting Civ V's name in there.

Le'ts hope the reviews are good to get the Civ fans interested.

Civ 5 can go to hell if anything elemental is way better, so freaking over Civ4's city spam.

Civ V heavily discourages City spamming.

Civ 5 can wait.  I'm playing Elemental!

wat

Did you even play Civ4?

You're playing it on the lowest difficulty, then sure, spam cities.

Play ICS as Yang in SMAC and then you'll know the meaning of city spam.

Civ 5 will certainly trump elemental upon release. The game is building upon an already successful game model that hasn't been truly fresh and new since the time of Civ 1. To pretend that Elemental in his rough fetal state is going to somehow be better than a game that has 20 years of ideas and experience behind it is rather foolish.

Elemental can be something special given time, but from what I have seen I don't think it will ever be the top game of its genre or be especially innovating. I can't really think of a single feature Elemental has to separate it from other fantasy strategy games. It doesn't have to be a ground breaker to be a good game though and I think with time the game will find its niche so long as Stardock doesn't give up on it.

I can like more then 1 game at a time, but, I am an exceptional gamer   

Bring on the Civ5 AND Elemental!

Lol, Kotaku??? With a valid opinion???

I agree with a previous poster: plenty of room in the market for both games, because I know I'll be purchasing both. To me, they're different enough and provide enough value that they each warrant a purchase. Those on a tighter budget--be it with time or money--will have to give the issue more consideration.

P.S. With Elemental and Civ4 being released within such a short time frame, perhaps someone could suggest a (legal) way for me to get by on 4 or 5 hours of sleep per week?

I don't know how you got "not impressed" from that little blurb.

Here is a thought, can stardock make Elemental 2 off of the Civ5 platform? Then we would really have a Master of Magic successor! (That's what I thought this game was going to be...)

Gawd, now that would be a game to get excited over!!!  Plus using a proven platorm. 

Actually just use the master of magic platform and make it multiplayer! Don't even change the mechanics! Just a graphics overhaul...BOOM massive great game with a huge customer base.  Don't put any "programmer expression" into it.  Make the cities, units, and spells work EXACTLY the same!

I've found that AI's in Elemental sorta city spam.  I went from having two large cities to six cities after fighting a single AI.  If I were to fight another, that would be ten cities which puts it in the realm Civ4 on a huge map.

Stardock would get sued for Copyright infringement.

If everyone who was going to buy Civ V bought Elemental first, I think we'd be quite happy with that.

Well, obviously go down the right legal paths to secure licensing and access.  Would be funny if they(whomever owns Micropose now) released a MoM2 upon seeing if this release goes well or not.  Whomever started the "MoM-like", which was obviously wrong, probably gave the real MoM the best marketing campaign ever.  Because everyone who knew it, still wants it....and those who didn't now know what MoM is.

Guilty as charged.

lol? The game is so extremely similar to Galciv2, in so many ways (a good thing), yet they list Sins (which was made by Ironclad) and Demigod (which wasnt popular). Just lol.
Reviewers..

Technically we published both games. Elemental is the only one that was self-developed. Just goes to show how much credit (and blame) the publisher gets.