English Demo first impressions

[Panzer76]

Ok.. the controls are HOPELESS. This is one of the games I really want to like and play, but how can I when the controls are counter intuitive (to other RTS') and are all over the keyboard. I mean, cmon, the technical quality is nice, bit the controls are from the 90this. Please look into this as the controls of any game are fundamental to the enjoyment of said game. And please dont give me any crap about how we will get used to it. We already are used to how most games handles movement and control, why would this game need any special keys for that? (hint, it doesnt and it is just stupid)

[ShiftZ]

something about it just doesn't feel quite realistic enough

Ok here's what you do. Sign up with the armed services of your country. Get posted to a hot zone where real people are involved in real combat and where you can be really killed. That should fill out your "realistic enough" desire.

[Captain wow]

i tryed again & my box sais that i could not get the demo. It was realy fustrating. but oh well just another month to go

[thathawk]

I like the graphics I am about halfway through the demo but have been halted by an 88mm hidden in the village I think that the ai needs polishing up though there was an instant where I destroyed a german half track it was a direct hit and the half track burst into flames immedietly to my suprise about 4 german troops climbed out of the halftrack and then hid behind the burning reck any one played faces of war when thank cought on fire you would see tank crewsrunning in panic some with their uniforms on fire maybe the some tweeking is needed berore the release I am impressed and have placed my order

[Mastiff]

I give 3 1/2 stars. I loved it, to me it was very intuitive; I got it right away. I guess I'm used to these types of games?

Assign hot keys was easy. The easy of seting up hot keys the way I use other games is what I like.

Giving orders was easy.

Sniper needs work he gets spotted to easy.

The graphics on my system set all on and was smooth works great with ATI3870x2 crossfire mode.

intell 7600 cor duo vista 64 bit 8 gb of ram.

Can't wait for the release.

Thanks 1C and especially the old Il2 crew and Sneaksie.

and most of all Battlefront crew small u may be. But large on RTS gaming.

[DeutschRitter]

Does anyone know what the "Arcade Modus" mean?

[Captain wow]

(Thathawk) i have face of war

[Captain wow]

ill aslo be getting men of war

[Gnasher]

Ok.. the controls are HOPELESS. This is one of the games I really want to like and play, but how can I when the controls are counter intuitive (to other RTS') and are all over the keyboard. I mean, cmon, the technical quality is nice, bit the controls are from the 90this. Please look into this as the controls of any game are fundamental to the enjoyment of said game. And please dont give me any crap about how we will get used to it. We already are used to how most games handles movement and control, why would this game need any special keys for that? (hint, it doesnt and it is just stupid)

Ever think of going to Settings\Controls & setting your 'intuitive' key commands?

Most moronic/troll post I've seen in a long time.............

[Mongo]

I don't know. This one made me laugh too:

"The UI could do with some refining as there are loads of buttons and in the demo i used less than half of them".

16 buttons.

Maybe some of them can be used by units in the full game. Just maybe.

[Lanzfeld]

I like the graphics I am about halfway through the demo but have been halted by an 88mm hidden in the village I think that the ai needs polishing up though there was an instant where I destroyed a german half track it was a direct hit and the half track burst into flames immedietly to my suprise about 4 german troops climbed out of the halftrack and then hid behind the burning reck any one played faces of war when thank cought on fire you would see tank crewsrunning in panic some with their uniforms on fire maybe the some tweeking is needed berore the release I am impressed and have placed my order

It is called a period ------> .

Try it sometime.

[SlapHappy]

I think some large improvements have been made here over the original TOW. I like how you can set your troops to go at a crawl by setting it as a default. I also like the way the TAC AI has troops seek cover and drop to the ground for awhile on the move when they come under fire. The graphics for the soldiers, especially textures are more refined. Also, the squad numbers have been increased to faithfully reproduce units up to 12 members.

Indirect fire is a welcome add-on and the combat from buildings. Plus they added hand to hand combat!

On the minus side, troop levels still seem awfully small for each side. Is there still a cap on the number of squads you can put into the game? I see that you can reinforce gradually as the game progresses, but that is a small consolation. In the demo, like TOW 1, infantry seemed to get chewed up fairly quickly and starting with only six squads make them very delicate in the game. Some had complained about TOW 1 that the maps were too small, but I think with the troop levels currently supported, it is best to play this game with a map of about 500 meters per side, only a couple of pieces of armor, and shortened lines of sight (as much as this is possible in a desert warfare game).

I also think small arms lethality needs to be tuned down a bit, especially at medium to long ranges. It just isn't easy to hit moving targets with iron sights only with the strain and terror of close combat working on your nerves!

It will be interesting to see what the scenario programming code offers the scenario builder as opposed to TOW 1. God knows I fiddled around with that enough over the last couple of years.

[Sneaksie]

Can't wait for the release.

Thanks 1C and especially the old Il2 crew and Sneaksie.

and most of all Battlefront crew small u may be. But large on RTS gaming.

Thanks!

Il2 crew is very busy making Battle for Britain, so they didn't participate in ToW development though.

[phil stanbridge]

I found it quite fun once I figured out what the hell to do. I like the graphics and the sound effects although the sound seemed to creep in and out on my speakers which was a bit confusing - almost like the surround settings are too sensitive in the game.

Controls are quite demanding however, and I couldn't get the rotate camera to work either. They need some work in my honest opinion.

Lastly, lag - there is plenty on my system, which is a decent spec. Dual core cpu, 4850 graphics with 3gb ram. It would take a while to select things, and the interface is really tiny on my 1920x1200 resolution which is a little confusing, especially during larger battles.

Overall I can see the potential however, and as I said I quite like it so far.

[handihoc]

Ok here's what you do. Sign up with the armed services of your country. Get posted to a hot zone where real people are involved in real combat and where you can be really killed. That should fill out your "realistic enough" desire.

Nah. Shock Force fills out my 'realistic enough' desire, and I'm gambling that CMx2 WW2 will do likewise.

I bought ToW1 and found it atmospheric and enjoyable but fiddly, with some very 'unrealistic' actions from infantry and vehicles alike at times. Additionally, some of the scenarios felt a little gamey and contrived. When CM Shock Force came along, even with all its initial problems, I never booted up ToW again.

In the end it's just down to personal preference I guess. ToW has some very positive things going for it - I particularly like the damage modelling - and I may give this demo another run through at some point. But I think my future wargaming dilemmas are going to revolve purely around whether to play CM Modern Warfare (SF and it's modules) or CM WW2.

As for real warzones, I'll leave those to real men.

[Skinnedpuppy]

I felt like i had my face glued to the battlefield, couldn't zoom out far enough.

There may be a lot of detail but when the games in full flow there's no chance of appreciating it and it turns into a clickfest.

No go for me.

Also had trouble getting Anti-Aliasing to work so it looked ugly.

[Sneaksie]

Camera limits, as well as its behavior, can be changed in preferences.

[Tartari]

There may be a lot of detail but when the games in full flow there's no chance of appreciating it and it turns into a clickfest.

TOW is pausable with ability to issue orders so it won't be never overwhelming.

[Skinnedpuppy]

I'll take another look, you may want to change the default settings though, i don't think they give a good impression.

I few people have already stated it's like a fight against the UI, and it did feel like that.

[Crimguy]

The only issue I had with the UI was the camera and turning off the RTS setting in the preferences fixed that. Not sure what else is bothering everyone.

Curious though - do tanks rush blindly at the enemy like they did in TOW1? That was the chief reason I gave up on that one.

[Gnasher]

Well there doesn't appear to be a hold position button anymore & I haven't noticed any units rushing like leemings into a wall of enemy fire.

The indirect fire option is very useful although now IMO we need an ammo replenshment unit, whether this is a dedicated unit or just a transport vehicle with ammo boxes loaded I don't know. I do know my 105s shot off a ton of shells suppressing the German 88s & pak40s so that I only had smoke left when it came to the village.

The UI took me about 15mins to get used to, quite alot of differences there & I too miss the ability to select high, middle, low aiming points. Overall though I'd say there are many improvements & apart from the aiming can't think of any big negatives.

[Gnasher]

I felt like i had my face glued to the battlefield, couldn't zoom out far enough.

You can set that in the settings, IIRC default setting is about 60%

There may be a lot of detail but when the games in full flow there's no chance of appreciating it and it turns into a clickfest.

Try either pause or reducing time to 50% as an antidote to clickfest.

[Sneaksie]

Well there doesn't appear to be a hold position button anymore & I haven't noticed any units rushing like leemings into a wall of enemy fire.

The indirect fire option is very useful although now IMO we need an ammo replenshment unit, whether this is a dedicated unit or just a transport vehicle with ammo boxes loaded I don't know. I do know my 105s shot off a ton of shells suppressing the German 88s & pak40s so that I only had smoke left when it came to the village.

The UI took me about 15mins to get used to, quite alot of differences there & I too miss the ability to select high, middle, low aiming points. Overall though I'd say there are many improvements & apart from the aiming can't think of any big negatives.

I think we need to make a new sticky thread about this:)

To order units to hold fire or hold position left-click fire mode or movement mode button.

To change firing and movement modes (aim at specific parts, barrage, change movement stance and behaviour) right-click those buttons and choose the mode.

Note that right-clickable buttons have a triangle in low right corner.

[Glennovich]

There are many improvements in TOW2 and the effects and graphics are great for a (realistic) RTS. Only the AA-problem makes it in some cases not possible to turn on the graphics highest level (HDR and SSAO off), even with an highend GPU.

The sounds are also an improvement compared with TOW1, only the dialogs should be close combat-dialogs (a lot more emotions!). I think a very important item to improve! It would increase the WOII-atmosphere. Remember CC, low graphics but what an atmosphere!!!

Closing comment: well done, but some minor issues that needs to be fixed to make this a standard!

[Kirq]

I few people have already stated it's like a fight against the UI, and it did feel like that.

+1

There something odd about the UI and camera control. I'll give it another try later but for now I'll pass this game. Somehow I can't control the game like I would like to, can anyone tell me how to turn the tank without moving it ? O_o

PS. It runs laggy on my :

C2D 6550 (2.3 GHz)

3 GB RAM

GF260