Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

Value

60Below AverageYou get a fair bit of content, but the price of admission is simply too high for some basic single player campaigns with zero production values. The maps are far too small and far too cramped to create any castles that would make SimCity jealous. RTS and strategy games have largely been independent of DLC, but with the preorder bonuses in play, I’m sure we’ll see this game try and milk it for cash rather than delivering a solid game out of the box.

Lasting Appeal

20Deplorable

This game needs to be recalled right now, apologized for, and redeployed with a proper set of basic RTS features.  The only thing that you are going to remember about this game is its horrid launch, and how good the previous games were in the series by comparison.   Really, there’s nothing new or interesting done by this game in the series, and even if there was something new and interesting here, the design and lack of quality assurance ensures that you will never get to see or enjoy it fully.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Music is good, but repetitious
• A prosperous empire feels awesome once you get there.

Cons

• But the game has done everything in its power to make you want to quit before you experience it all.
• Between the wolves running up ladders and mouse selection/attacking issues, I’m pretty sure no one tested this game. I feel like I paid 49.99 for beta access.
• A disastrous launch will likely cripple or halt any further content, DLC or otherwise. That might be getting ahead of things--we should pray for a patch to establish basic functionality first.

Conclusion

Somewhere inside this package is a good game. A good game that is beneath heaps of dirt, dirt consisting of stupid design decisions, and an interface that is not only lacking and ineffective at communicating with the player but actually lying to you about your mouse cursor’s position half of the time. If Firefly listens to their community and fixes everything, I’m sure we’ll see Stronghold 3 become a worthwhile successor someday, but it is not this day.