Game-breaking video bug ruins this otherwise good game.

User Rating: 5 | The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom PC
My first impression of Settlers 7 was good. The graphics, though "cartoony" look nice. The simplification of the buildings (i.e. fewer buildings with added modules) is a welcome change. The military is much better and war is more fun. The game seemed like a step in the right direction (after being disappointed with Settlers 6).

One thing I don't like is the limitation of just one account. If two people play on the same computer, they are forced to share the same profile. Of course, you can name your game saves. But this seems like an absurd limitation when so many modern games allow different computer accounts to have different profiles. But this is a minor annoyance compared to what I consider to be the game breaker....

There is a graphics bug/glitch that happens in every game, where the trees, building, etc. flash uncontrollably and the game grinds to a screeching halt. My machine surpasses the required specs, so that's not the problem. Online forums testify that the issue is widespread on both ATI and NVidia based GPUs. This problem has never happened in any other game on my machine; it is unique to this game. Tweaking the graphic options doesn't seem to help either.

I would have liked to give this game a higher score, but it is broken. (Fortunately I found the game on a great sale, otherwise I would have rated it even lower). Until there is a patch to fix this problem, the game simply isn't playable IMO.