BlueSmoke - Review : Etherlords Beta Essays

		Date	: Nov 12th, 2001
		Genre	: Strategy
		Developer	: Nival Interactive
		Author	: Multiple

Recently, on the 2nd of November 2001, the results for the Etherlords Beta Writing Competition held among Nival Interactive's beta-testers team was announced. After carefully scrutinizing all the contest entries, the winners were listed down on the main page of the official Etherlords site. The lucky winners - Dominic Clarke, J.J. Hermans and Gleb Sokolov, got to choose the color of their new Nival Team T-Shirts. However, since it was hard to choose winners among the other interesting essays submitted, more articles were selected and published as well, together with the winning essays. The names of additionally selected authors are Ivan "VanyaCKiller" Gekht, George Chamurliev, Adnel Ortiz and BlueSmoke's own Jin-Ning "Chaos" Tioh.

In co-operation with Nival Interactive, today BlueSmoke brings you the winning English reviews of Dominic Clarke and J.J. Hermans, as well as the additionally selected author Adnel Ortiz aka Betrayer X. Be sure to read them, as they contain a lot of useful information about Nival Interactive's 3D Turn-based strategy game, Etherlords.

Etherlords Beta Review

Many turns ago, I read about a game in development by Nival Studios called Etherlords. I looked at many screenshots thinking "Wow! A fantasy RTS to tide me over until Warcraft 3!" I was shocked when I actually did some reading and found out this game was to be turn-based. "Again!" I shouted! I've already got 3 Heroes of Might and Magic games! I don't need more, I need real-time, I ranted to anyone who would listen. Incidentally, the family cat seemed totally oblivious to my diatribe. Fuming, I sat glaring at my screen. Yes, Nival Studios were the geniuses behind Rage of Mages, one of my favorite games, and Evil Islands another, albeit flawed, classic. So why would they make it turned based?!? Nevertheless, I persisted, knowing I owed it to the company after the hours of fun I had with Rage. As I read on I couldn't shake the feeling that this had all been done before. Heroes of Might and Magic has done this, and number 4 is around the corner. The more I read however, the more interested I became. A fusion of turn based strategy and card games using what appeared to be the Evil Islands engine. Maybe it isn't HOMM4 with a different name! I had taken the bait and all that they had to do now was reel me in.

Now don't get me wrong. I have never been a fan of those card games like Magic : The Gathering. They always seemed too geeky for someone of my level of coolness. In other words, my simple mind couldn't comprehend them so I make myself feel better by mocking those who understand the intricate decks and draws and what have yous. Etherlords however, provided a way for me to get to know them…if they're making a strategy game with them then it has to be easy, right? It was a tantalizing thought, card-based combat accessible to the masses. I read some more and liked what I heard, so I signed up for the beta.

So now, after many turns have elapsed, I eagerly install the massive one-gigabyte beta. Shuddering, my 56k modem groans contentedly, happy to simply check e-mail. With a sudden, terminal sounding burst of machine-gun fire my hard-drive reaches its climax, and it is done. My expectations as hot as my modem, I load it up. For the sake of you all I will spare you the saga of the Detonator 4 drivers, and thus allow the article to make it past the censors. Rather than shock you with the near-limitless cursing vocabulary of that tale, I will instead get back to the point : Is this game going to be Heroes with a new name?

The answer is a resounding NO! And I praised the heavens as I played the game... I had a lot of time for prayer as my Celeron 366 struggled to load a large single-player map. The important thing is that Etherlords is nothing like Heroes. Sure you can draw similarities, and I imagine many a critical reviewer will scathingly do exactly that, probably because he still can't work out the combat system and needs to say something. Yes, the game has a fantasy setting. Yes it is turn-based. Yes it has heroes. Agreed, some of their skills are similar to those in the Heroes series. But here the similarity ends.

The most obvious differences are aesthetic. Etherlords looks remarkably like Evil Islands, and is true 3D so you can zoom and rotate till your heart's content. The colors are rich and vibrant and quite enjoyable to behold. Once in combat, you are presented with an isometric view which not only looks good but is extremely practical, and allows you to view your own forces and the enemy's with ease. However, graphics maketh not the game, so rather than dwell on this aspect, I'll move onto the important stuff: the combat.

Combat in Etherlords is remarkably innovative, and could not be more different to that of similar games. Your hero does not wander around with legions upon legions of skeletons and dragons; instead, he must summon creatures to fight for him when engaged in combat. These minions engage heroes directly in combat, and victory is gained by actually killing the hero, not his army. This changes the strategic emphasis of combat, in a manner not unlike that of the Commanders in Total Annihilation. Minions can attack the hero directly if no enemy creatures oppose them, but risk leaving their own leader exposed in doing so.

Even in its beta-stage, the Etherlords combat system posses a kind of symmetry that draws me to it. Thrusts meet counter-thrusts, a victory which seemed assured can be turned around in an instant. Part of this poetry is that combat is essentially limited in duration by what is called Ether Disturbance. After a certain number of rounds, the Ether your hero manipulates turns against him and begins to deal increasingly large amounts of damage at the end of a round. While a number of testers have expressed concerns about this feature, I believe it is one that enhances combat immeasurably by limiting cowardly defensive tactics. Another excellent feature is that the number of spells you can carry is limited to 15. This requires you to plan out a strategy in advance and decide on the type of deck that you wish to use. The sheer number of spells can be very intimidating at first, and I am not ashamed to admit that I died horribly many a time due to lack of comprehension. But once you endure that humiliation ( and assuming you learn from it quickly, unlike myself ) a few times, the spell system is a joy to behold and there is a genuine sense of achievement at defeating the tougher enemies.

What makes combat so innovative is that it winning isn't based on having more massive army than your opponent. It is reliant on having a balance of spells and good tactics to go with it. In Heroes you could wear down even huge heroes with a series of smaller ones before he could recruit more. Try sending a series of weaker heroes against a strong one in Etherlords and you'll end up looking very foolish indeed. The stronger the hero the more Ether Channels he commands. These channels essentially limit the amount of Ether your hero gets per turn. By the 8th turn a level 7 hero will be gaining 6 or 7 Ether a turn while a level 1 hero would only have 4. This alone makes the game miles apart from Heroes.

As I mentioned above, the hero summons minions to fight for him in battle, so by now I'm sure you're all wondering what the castle does. Not much is my answer. So far, it is the only aspect I haven't been happy with. You don't build structures inside it or upgrade it; rather you upgrade captured structures to provide you with resources. Nor do structures provide you with new creatures directly. Several key structures allow you to purchase new spells. The variety of spells makes it essential to command as many of these structures as possible to get the best range.

This is only scratching the surface of Etherlords. Suffice to say a comparison to the Heroes of Might & Magic series is baseless. That is not to say that fans of the series won't like the game. Quite the opposite, Etherlords breathes new life into a genre flooded by Heroes clones. If you love turn-based strategy or any of the Heroes saga, I challenge you to set your preconceptions aside and play Etherlords. Likewise, fans of card-based strategy games will find the game a joy to play and will relish the chance to master the decks and the strategies that Etherlords offers. Simply put, Etherlords has something for everyone. Except my cat who still isn't very excited by the whole thing, but he'll come around.

- Dominic Clarke

Etherlords Beta Review
Intro

Although we all are well aware of the fact that on the old and new continents some major game developer-companies exists, it seems time that with Etherlords we have to turn our heads to the lands of the old Tsars. Nival looks to make a mark on the history of computer games with it's soon to be released Etherlords, a turn-based strategy game that looks as promising as Tetris did some decades ago. Beta-testers were asked to write about their game experiences, with the promise of freedom of speech ( a lesson for the other software houses ). So saddle up to reach your local vendor, and order this one as soon as you've finished reading.

The Game

As soon as we talk about TBS games ( Turn-based strategy ), our eyes get clouded and we start to think of the good old days of Heroes of Might and Magic and Magic the Gathering / Shandalar. Well, Etherlords is different and merges these two games at the same time. You have heroes to attack monsters and enemy heroes. And yes : Your heroes draw cards, casts spells and summon monsters like you were used to in these type of games. Ok, but what is the difference? First, the game lives up to the top-notch nowadays standard of graphical art. The whole game is beautifully made in a true 3D environment, and zooming in on your heroes makes you wonder if you can see some goose pimples when they are fighting in the snow.

The second and more important difference is the resource management. There is no gold, and the secret of resource management in this game is hidden in its name : Ether. Almost everything you do costs Ether, summoning or maintaining heroes, creating forts, attacking enemies on a distance, you name it - all you need is Ether. So if you summon as many heroes as you can, play and wonder after some time why you can't make a fortress to defend your hard earned conquests, it is because heroes costs Ether and so do fortresses. Balance is the issue in this game. But wait, there is more to learn : Casting and fighting.

Casting and Fighting

This is where the trouble begins. Your hero has a deck consisting of 15 cards with which he can summon monsters, casts bless or doom spells that will affect your creatures or the enemy critters and / or heroes. Sounds easy, but it's hard to master. With a Matrix-movie like automatic camera and enemies that look spookier than Michael Jackson in leather undies, you have to keep your concentration and make decisions when blocking creatures, casting spells and ordering attackers. A miscalculation can be lethal, and people complaining about too easy games will be delighted with this one. Moreover, ordering one of your heroes to attack certain monsters is one of the first major critical decisions you have to make in the campaign mode. Be sure to attack monsters you can handle, earn experience, raise levels and pump up your hero with some skills before you decide to attack the heavier creatures.

Cards, Portals and Shops

As you've read, your hero can gain levels with which you'll be able to make your hero stronger. A second way to make an Ether-kickin'-butt-hero is to visit shops and portals. The shops offer a wide range of cards, which you can buy to alter your deck. With the portals you'll be able to buy runes - required to cast the heavier spells and monsters.

Hang on - Ether, cards and fighting, how can you buy new cards for spells and summoning monsters? Simple : Apart from the Ether, there are plenty and different resources you might need to buy something. Looting defeated enemies or taking mines can obtain these resources. That said, consider you can also upgrade these mines to gather more resources, as you can upgrade portals and shops to buy runes at a reduced price or fill your deck with nastier monsters or spells. Plenty of options and plenty of fun, but it takes hard labor to be able to buy Dragons or other supreme monsters. Not only will the enemy heroes constantly nibble your mines, shops, portals or - worst case scenario - attack your hero, most mines are guarded and getting the reward mostly involves a heavy and difficult fight.

Campaign, Duel or Multiplayer

As can be expected from games developed in this era, a fine multiplayer-mode is included. Best of all is the duel mode, with which you can practice duels; play against the computer or other players over the Internet. New players would like to start with the campaign : Well, know the campaign is steep. After the completion of the first two stages, it is possible you'll be shouting behind your desk not being able to finish it. No worries, switch to the duel mode and practice, practice and practice even more. The game offers four races with entirely different spells, and switching from one race to the other will feel like being born again. Mastering the game with one race really doesn't guarantee that you'll be able to do it again with another race. To make another remark about the campaign mode : It's a pity that the levels in the campaign resemble each other so much, no matter which race you choose. But the duel mode make up to that. In the duel mode you're able to design your own heroes and decks at any level and let them fight controlled by you, another player or the computer.

Verdict

So, do you have to open your wallet and spent money to buy this game, or should you greedily count your dimes and enrich the bartender of an obscure pub? Well, the game has great graphics that are unseen in TBS-games before. The first time I entered a fight I was wildly searching for my joystick, thinking I had to do all the moves by myself. The automatic camera gives the feel and ooze of a special effects movie, and can be turned of to zoom and circle around to your liking. Sadly there is no map-editor in the package, but that's understandable if you consider even the maps are truly made up of a 3D-environment where you also can zoom and circle around.

The game won't wear off due to the fine duel-mode. Also, sad tacticians who are unable to get through the campaign will be able to design a strong hero with undiscovered cards and have their share. Apart from the so-so campaign mode, Etherlords sets a new standard in the TBS-gaming industry, and other developers will have to work very hard to make up the gap that Nival has created. So make sure you grab some money, run to the vendor and spoil yourself with this one.

- J.J. Hermans

Etherlords Beta Review

Hi and welcome to my Etherlords beta review. First of all I might say that, contrary to a friend of mine who thought the game was about drug wars, this game is not the same type of RTS or RPG you have played before, but it's more like a blend of the 2 genres.

After a so-so story and a cool but choppy graveyard intro you get no idea what you are going to do... which is good for me since I like surprises 8).

At the beginning of the game, quite reminiscent of games a la C&C, you start to wonder how in the world it's possible that this demo weights 1 GIGABYTE to download and 1.5 Gigabytes after you install it. Maybe they wanted to make sure that the game wasn't pirated or just wanted to go straight to Guinness Book of World Records >=)

As soon as you go into battle you'll se why the D/L is so big, you enter an awesome battleground. It actually reminded me of FF7 but with WAY better graphics and animations. You'll battle one wizard against another casting spells and summoning creatures to help you, but more on that later.

Sound-wise, the music is awesome... nice tracks, but the voice acting is so repetitive, at least at the beginning when you have just a couple of spells, that you want to turn the audio off.

Controls are easy but not very intuitive on the beginning, again with some resemblance to FF7's turn-based fight engine. I really liked the right-click info button on the mouse, but I would have appreciated a bunch of options a-la Home World. And while the game has an auto attack option, the fact is that you feel that you have little control by using it and the AI is not smart enough casting spells.

This game really takes a lot of your system, so get ready to have a decent machine to run it. My system specs are at the end of the article for you to compare, and I can say it ran silky smooth with all settings maxed out and 1024x768 resolution. But after I entered the Task Manager I just saw that the game was taking about 220MB of my system RAM. Thank God it comes cheap these days 8). I have experienced NO crashes or strange bugs so far, no missing textures, and no glitches of any kind, except a little lack of synchronization in some spells that seem to hit before they were thrown by the enemy, so I take my hat off on this department, but not every beta-tester has been so lucky, according to the news groups.

On a final word I see a nice future for this game... It's really cool looking's, nice music and original game play will hook people by the masses, and since the game runs quite well, I hope they fine tune it enough to make it awesome.

- Adnel Ortiz