J.R.

(Relatively) modern doctrine would be to keep Bazookas behind the wedge next to the squad/plt leader, same for MGs. That's from my own experience about 20 years ago... x x x x L x B

(Relatively) modern doctrine would be to keep Bazookas behind the wedge next to the squad/plt leader, same for MGs. That's from my own experience about 20 years ago... x x x x L x B

Optics quality? (shrug)

Something I have missed in the general flood of posts regarding the release involve the demo. I don't buy games without a good experience in a demo first-- this simple rule saves me a lot of heartache. I find the CMSF demo has all the faults mentioned in the numerous posts regarding the release version, plus a couple of things all its own. A bit of background: Please note I speak for myself only here, I don't claim to speak for anyone else. I came to the CM series after playing Close Combat and V4V for years past the point where they were viable. (In fact I still play V4V and love it). I am a cardboard gamer from way back also. I was initially unimpressed with the concept behind CM and the reviews and screenshots did not do much to convince me to try it. It did not look interesting to me, sort of like a more realistic Close Combat, and I was tired of that. Then a friend convinced me to download the demo for CMBB. The demo was what hooked me. The first time I set up a defense of interlocking AT guns and chopped up the Panzer attack in the CMBB demo, I knew this game was a keeper. CMAK: same thing. The demo convinced me to purchase the game immediately. It was not only the quality that I liked; I also was very impressed with the fact that the demo scenarios were so intricate and good. They were obviously not thrown together, but rather quality pieces in their own right. My reaction was 'if the demo scenarios are this good, the game must be something else!' I do not feel that way about the demo for CMSF. Leaving aside the game engine issues, which you probably have heard more about than you can stand, the demo scenarios are not up to the quality of the CMBB/CMAK demos. Rather than being impressed by the demo, I have been left with a very bad taste in my mouth regarding purchasing this game. I have two suggestions, one of which is pretty obvious, the other less so. Firstly, please patch the demo along with the release version. I trust you to get this game fixed, but please don't leave the demo with the existing version. Secondly, when you release the patched demo, I stronly suggest you take the opportunity to include another scenario for the demo. I suggest that it be in the top third of the ones with the release in terms of quality. The existing scenarios don't do the game justice. The first one is billed as a tutorial, and the second one is pretty much boring IMO. A third high quality scenario might be the tipping point in terms of generating excitement about the game. I really hope I get to like this game better. Right now, it's not on my buy list.

Please please make sure to patch the demo too. I won't consider buying this game until I can have some fun in the demo version.

I'm playing an operation in CMBB with a friend using PBEM Helper. We just switched the game over to trusted mode. The PBEM Helper works fine for me, but he is consistently getting an error when it comes time for Helper to blank the screen. It errors out with the error message, 'can't blank screen'. However, when he tests the screen blanker from the desktop, it works fine. We initially tried altering desktop resolution and color depth, then deleting his prefs file for CMBB, and reselecting to match his desktop display settings, but neither of these have helped. Any PBEM Helper expert out there want to take a crack at this?

Hmm... I tried to get CM going on my (way old) Dell but was not able to-- I blamed the onboard graphics. After reading the above I may have to try again!

No swastika

A desire to have some fun with alternative history does not necessarily indicate a desire for the German thousand year reich. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. I have the Battlefront print of a Panther on my wall along with my various other decorations. Does this mean I am a facist? Sheesh.

My suggestion would be to use a third-party application called FRAPS. It's a screen capture utility that can be used to capture game play. www.fraps.com It will capture raw game footage to AVI. Editing the result is up to you... Good luck!

Moon, would it be possible to post a page or two so we could evaluate the quality ourselves? It would save me a lot of bad feeling if I went and spent the money and found the quality unacceptable...