Some-Guy

There is an older playable demo. It is Russian. Here is a link: http://ru.akella.com/Game.aspx?id=121&mode=demos Click on this for the file: Морской охотник Демо (1,2 Гб) To get the program to install you will need to rename the file after you save it as most US systems do not support cyrillic characters. I renamed mine to demo.exe and then executed it to install the software. To make the in-game options in the GUI display in English to know what graphic and realism options settings are you must change a file. Find Start.ini in your X:\Program Files\Akella Games\Ìîðñêîé Îõîòíèê folder. Erase what is in there and replace it with the following: <root> <locale>EN</locale> <menu_mission_holder>menu</menu_mission_holder> <play_intro val="1"/> </root> The game will still be in Russain but at least you can see what the settings are. Also, your crew will not fire their guns in the first (tutorial) mission on their own but they do in all other missions. Please remember this is an older demo released a number of months before Battlefront got involved. I hope that helps.

At the end of the video there was a soldier firing it instead of the guy with the leather jacket. The soldier was able to keep the launcher much more stable it seems than the un-trained fellow.

It does indeed have playable s-boots.

Having only played the Russian Demo I have limited experience. I do know that it can be dang fun! Each time I am amazed at how cool it feels... To be standing at the helm (F4 view) while you steer towards the target, a fat transport, in a convoy, zig zaging as you approach, doing close to 40 knots. Just ahead of the transport a destroyer has opened fire.. It looks like a Times Square Light Show from all the guns firing at you.. Tracers fly past from multiple directions and shell bursts create water spouts all around you in near misses and still you press on. Your gun crews are pouring hundreds of rounds into a defending S-Boot running parallel to the starboard.. As men are hit they fall back off the deck into the water but they are no concern.. All that matters is getting that ship-killing shot off. You crouch down by the manual torpedo director.. Just a simple sliding triangle with vertical bars for sights.. Firing from less than 1k won't require much lead... You line up the shot through the sight, angling to port slightly to get that starboard tube lined up with the front 1/3 of the transport.. And then you fire! The fish blasts out of the tube and heads right for the target! You bank you boat hard to port and order the smoke generator to make a screen... Thick white smoke pours from the back of your boat masking any view of the convoy and you from them.. though bullets and shells still pass through seeking your death.. their accuracy is greatly reduced and the misses are not so near. As you continue to increase the distance behind a white misty shield you hear the booming explosion of a torpedo hit. The transport is going to the bottom and you lived for another day. Mission accomplished. IMHO the sim part rocks!

I have the Akella/1C Russian Demo (with menus in English) and I agree with Sonarman 100%. A dynamic campaign engine, ala SH III/IV, and a mission builder is what the game really needs (among a few other things) IMHO.

Battlefront has not released any version since they picked up publishing that I know of. Any version, from any nation, you get right now will be the Akella/1C version.

From what I understand it was released in Russia first. Then it was released in Germany and most recently Australia. Battlefront is now going to be publishing the title and are planning to release it soon (they are probably getting the english cleaned up). You could probably find retailers in Germany, and I know you can find some online for Australia which will ship the game (and charge you international shipping fees). These DvD copies may have regional restrictions on them as well. I am going to wait for Battlefront's release myself. This way I can both download it and receive a box copy (with normal shipping fees) and I know that Battlefront will host any patches (if needed) as well.

I was just thinking the other day that the reason PT Boats had not been released in the US/UK was due to the lack of a publisher. Then I thought, what a perfect oppourtunity for Battlefront. Then I go to your site and see the great news! Thank you much! I look forward to spending my money with you again once the game is released.

It would be awful nice if it could go into a patch sometime after Normandy or even in an expansion pack. I know that if you did release it my buddy would probably get Marines and UK (I already have) and we would both get an exapnsion which included it. On a side note: Thank you much for bringing back the blue bar for WEGO.

Well that would somewhat solve all of my issues for CMSF. Would this be something where both players can select their units independently before the battle, but after they are connected.. Similar to the CMx1 interface? Also, is there a time frame at all or just... "When it is done"? Thank you for the clarification and taking the time to communicate with us.

The way I see it is that if you are against a feature then do not use it. As it is now, the QB function is somewhat poor. 7/10 games need to be scrapped as a company of TOW humvees would not be a logical choice to assault a village full of infantry. Nor is it very fun to play in my opinion. The QB system in CMx1 was superior for some and it is a shame it was removed as an option in CMSF. If Battlefront had replaced it with something better then this conversation would probably not exist. Unfortunately they replaced it with something that some believe is poor and which does not seem to satisify both the pro and anit-cp crowds since the results are so random and, at times, illogical. On a side note, I have lurked these forums since the beginning and I read all of the anti-cp posts back in the day.. I do understand why BF changed it. What I wish they would have done was give you the option to either CP or have the system select the forces for each QB instead of just the latter. We may be kicking a dead horse.. But the corpse is still blocking the road.

One other point... Deciding between the following for a given Quick Battle: 2 Companies of Volksgrenadiers VS 1 Company of Fallschirmjager VS 1 Platoon of Panzergrenadiers mounted in Sd Kfz 251s Is a fun game unto itself for some of us..

For some reason my Croy account was banned forever from posting, with no reason specified.. Even though I have never posted anything.. Odd. Back on topic.. My friend and I found your company back when CMBO was new. We both loved your games and both purchased all of the CMx1 games. When CMSF came out it was a "no-brainer" for us to purchase it due to our great history thus far. The ONLY way my friend and I played CMx1 games was via Quick Battles and picking our forces (first via PBEM until TCP/IP was added-Which was awesome.. thank you much). We would be on the phone and decide on general parameters. Then we would both pick our forces and play out the battle. In both of our opinions this was one of the best times we had playing h2h in any network game, in the last decade, ever.... We played 1,000's of games against each other, night after night, for years. We never played scenarios and never played the campaign. I still have never started any campaign for any CMx1 game and only played a few scenarios. To this day my primary source of fun from all my CMx1 games comes from QBs and "cherry-picking" my units. We both were very let down when we found out how the CMSF QB system worked and shelved the game. I do play some CMSF and think it is an awesome game.. But it does not have the multiplayer appeal that the previous games did. A big part of the fun is finding out what your opponent picked compared to what you selected for the random terrain and general objectives and trying to win with it. In short... Both my friend and I would like to see the return of cherry-picking in CMSF and its add-ons. edit: note to me.. CMSF not CMFS