Golem Gates - Xbox One Review

Golem Gates is an interesting mix of strategy and chance, leveraging a collectible card game as its primary progression mechanic. The end result is a little uneven at times, but undeniably entertaining at the same time.

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Golem Gates - PC Review

"If I had to sum up Golem Gates in one statement, it would be stop reading this right now and go get it."

The above statement still stands. Golem Gates, by Laser Guided Games, is one of the best Real Time Strategies that I've played in a long time. Taking on the role of the Harbinger in order to restore your planet to what it used to be, you'll be facing off against others of equal power as you summon units from a deck built from collectible cards. There are no buildings to worry about, there are no drones to collect your resources. There is only you and your mana pool as you send your forces across the maps in order to decimate those that stand in your way.

Not having to worry about building up a base and drones brings a whole new element to the table when it comes to an RTS. Golem Gates while being all about the destruction of your foes, is destruction of your foes based off of two major elements. The first of these is still resource management as you have a mana pool that requires to be augmented if you're going to summon bigger and badder units faster. The second of these is luck as the other half of its core is that of a Collectible Card Game and your deck gets shuffled. Often.

Requiring a minimum of thirty cards, you'll be making adjustments to your deck as time goes on. In that deck, you can have whatever you want though it's fair to say that having units, and lots of them at that, is a good idea. With everything available though there is a balance that is going to need to be struct, unless you're really good at what you do. The reason for this as the more powerful the unit, the spell or the defensive structure, the more it costs to summon. As your mana pool near the beginning is not the biggest or even remotely fast, you'll want to start summoning a few smaller units to get the ball rolling and march them towards the first augmentation point before your foes take it over.

Because there are no based, everything about Golem Gates becomes much more mobile and fluid as you take over and capture points across the map. Some of these are to unlock doors while others are to speed up the generation of the mana that you'll need to summon out your units. These points will need to be defended so making sure that units are never really far is one way, but another is to leave a turret or two and if "shit really hits the fan" summon in several units to lay a smackdown or throw some potent spells your enemy's way.

This was perhaps one of the greatest features. Your Harbinger can summon units to anywhere that you can see on the map. Your forces are having a hard time? Drop in a large defensive type to take the brunt of the damage? Need to add that extra little push? Add in some minor attack troops or unleash hell with a unique special unit that can only exist as on instance on the field. The choice is yours but you have to see the location in order to summon to it.

That last statement was probably the biggest adjustment to it all. The fog of war in Golem Gates is very heavy and you never really see far requiring units like scout hounds almost necessary to see your enemy coming as you won't until they are on top of you. It's part of the strategy. I'll be honest at first that I thought it may have been part of the Early Access and development but after even just an hour or so it becomes clear that with the other systems in place it makes sense otherwise summoning units or using spells simply becomes broken if you can see that much at any time.

Now that Golem Gates has been fully release there are three chapters each with a series of missions to complete alongside a survival mode and a multiplayer. So really if one of these styles isn't your thing than one of the others surely will be.

Golem Gates is fantastic. Real Time Strategy mixed together with a Collectible Card Game makes for not only a flexible experience, but a personalized one. Instead of having to choose a race and being stuck with units you like or despise because you wanted the rest of them, you instead have exactly what you want. The catch? You need the mana to summon them! So dust off your capes and get your Harbingers out there!

Game Information

Platform:
PC
Developer(s):
Laser Guided Games LLC
Publisher(s):
Laser Guided Games LLC
Genre(s):
Real Time Strategy
Collectible Card Game
Mode(s):
Single Player
Multiplayer
Other Platform(s):
NA

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Pierre-Yves

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Golem Gates - PC Preview

If I had to sum up Golem Gates in one statement, it would be stop reading this right now and go get it. I honestly had to remind myself that it’s a currently an in Early Access title because I was going on my merry way to score it. Brilliantly meshing the real time strategy style and that of a collectable card game, the dark yet shiny metallic colours are amazing to watch as they traverse an ever present fog of war.

Other than maybe some balancing issues and adding in the rest of the campaign chapters, Golem Gates felt complete and very solid. Put into the role of the Harbinger, you are tasked with eliminating all threats that currently lie in the way of healing your world. Armed with the ability to summon offensive and defensive units as well as the ability to apply augmentations and impairments, your goal is clear. Eliminate everything that is not under your control.

Golem Gates has streamlined some RTS elements in order to make things not easier, but more manageable when combined with the CCG elements. Instead of using drones in order to collect resources, you instead have an ever filling energy pool that is used to summon Glyphs onto the field. Glyphs are essentially your cards that are present in your deck. The more powerful the Glyph, the more energy that it costs. Starting off you’ll be wanting to hold back on summoning the big things not because of the amount of energy required, but because of the recharge rate of your energy meter.

Starting off slowly you’ll need to play a few Glyphs on the field either for defensive purposes or to get more Glyphs in your hands. Summoning a few units will also do the trick as the more you play the faster your energy will fill up. This only works until a certain point in time however and after that point you’ll need to venture forth in order to start capturing either unoccupied or enemy generators to speed up your progress.

Because everything is “card” based you don’t have any structures to worry about which also speeds things up. Instead all of your worry and your attention can be dedicated to your units. The variety of these can make for interesting strategies as you have both basic and advanced melee, ranged and arcane that fall alongside more stationary structures like turrets and flame pillars. This lets you easily decide whether you want to keep units around a generator or to send them off to hit the enemy or one of their own placements. The choice is entirely yours just don’t want too long as the enemy will simply keep stocking up like you and the results will not be pretty.

Moving your units around is easy. Simply click and order them out. Where things get a bit tricky however is that there is a constant fog of war. The most you can see is where your troops or where your turrets are currently placed. Outside of that you’ll often have to rely on scouts to make sure that you aren’t walking straight into an enemy force when you could have held back and used your currently in place defensive turrets to your aid.

Because of the fog of war and only being able to see your units, you are allowed to play Glyphs as long as you can see the ground. This means that if you need more troops in a particular location, play the Glyph if you have enough energy and turn the tide of the skirmish. The same can be done with turrets and fireballs. Simply play them if you can which is much better than having to wait for them to run all the way over just to be marsacred because the battle was already over.

Adding to the single player campaign there are also trials, survival scenarios and a versus option to go up against other players or an AI. Honestly as I mentioned earlier Golem Gates feels rather complete so other than the extra campaign segments it’ll be interesting to see what is really added between now and full release.

Game Information

Platform:
PC
Developer(s):
Laser Guided Games LLC
Publisher(s):
Laser Guided Games LLC
Genre(s):
Real Time Strategy
Collectible Card Game
Mode(s):
Single Player
Multiplayer
Other Platform(s):
NA

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Pierre-Yves

Read More