theBrit Posted March 30, 2007 Share Posted March 30, 2007 Sorry if this has been posted before, but I've just come across this less than positive preview. *It does state that its a preview build. So I hope the problems highlighted have been addressed Theatre of War is not pushing the next-gen envelope by any means in terms of graphics or even physics for that matter. So I found it odd that it took so long to load up a fairly contained map. Also while ducking it out, I found the camera would not lock itself to the lowest position possible. I was constantly scrolling the mouse wheel to get a good look at the action. Finally, the AI of the game acted less than stellar. Many times when I would order my troops to enter a vehicle they would run around not sure what to do. This also overflowed into other areas like attacking certain units as well as firing at the correct target. Can one win a war when his or her troops don’t listen? Not really. In terms of audio Theatre of War is very generic. The explosions sound like ones we’ve heard a million times before and the battle music in very plain. It still does its job though. Oddly though it reminded me of Final Fantasy 12’s musical score.http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/theatreofwar/preview.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomm Posted March 30, 2007 Share Posted March 30, 2007 Even when running at maximum settings, Theatre of War did not come close to other titles like Company of Heroes or even the ancient Warcraft III. Strangely enough, I still would rather play ToW than those two games (or one of their myriad of clones). I hope nothing is wrong with me! The only games one should compare ToW to are Close Combat and Squad Assault. I predict that ToW will fare rather well in this comparison. Best regards, Thomm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomm Posted March 30, 2007 Share Posted March 30, 2007 By the way, I watched a video preview of "Command and Conquer 3" yesterday. State of the art, so to speak. What an insult these games are to a wargamers mind!! Best regards, Thomm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reichenberg Posted March 30, 2007 Share Posted March 30, 2007 I think a game like CaC3 is not at all aiming at the wargamers market - it is aiming at everything else but this. But let's just see how valid the points of the Strategy Informer previewer are when we hold at least the demo of ToW in our hands. Camera control, loading times etc. can only be judged by then - at least from us "not priviliged" ones Uwe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon Posted March 30, 2007 Share Posted March 30, 2007 Well, check out my shoutbox entry: The article is riddled with incorrect statements which show that the author was too induldged in his preconceived notion that WW2 games are noodled to death to bother to check them out. Even the legendary Call of Duty franchise - comparing a real time tactical guy to a first person shooter? Surely there must be at least one author on staff of the STRATEGY informer who is playing strategy games? Being an RTS, Theatre of War doesn’t allow for any up-close and personal encounters - this would be true of about every RTS game out there, but NOT with Theatre of War: TOW actually has a feature which allows you to see the action from eye level of ANY soldier by hitting the Enter key The first thing I noticed was how long the loads times were for the various campaign missions or battles - DOH! This is a beta build with debug code in it! You don't mention this stuff in PREviews Also while ducking it out, I found the camera would not lock itself to the lowest position possible. - If he was ducking it out a bit more he would have found the options panel which allows to adjust minium and maximum camera heights audio of Theatre of War surprisingly impressed me vs. audio Theatre of War is very generic Which is it? Given the previous points and the author's obvious favor for FPS games and not tactical games, I bet he forgot to adjust sound the "Desktop speakers" in the option panel, and was only hearing one of the four channels, since the default in the beta (unfortunately) was set to "Surround sound". The sounds in TOW are REALLY good. I guess it's clear that I am disappointed about this. One would think that a page calling itself Strategy Informer would have at least one person actually interested in the genre and willing to spend the time to do it justice. And one that would know what differentiates a preview from a review. This isn't the first time that Strategy Informer has written questionable articles. And it's the reason why I am reacting so sharply with them, simply fed up with bad journos and sites hunting for ad monies but not bothering to check the facts. And what you see is already the edited version, by the way. They changed some parts after my first email. Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theBrit Posted March 30, 2007 Author Share Posted March 30, 2007 Excellent response to SI Martin. With previewers like this who needs enemies.... Very unprofessional of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikoyanPT Posted March 30, 2007 Share Posted March 30, 2007 Comparing Theatre of War whith a FPS like Call of Duty or a eye candy point and click slaughter festival like Company of Heroes is absurd. I have not played a cool realistic wargame since panzer general series and Close Combat series. Please let 1c company and Battlefront give us something more serious. I played plenty of strategy games these years, i liked the Medieval and rome tothal war series, they are good, supreme commander, nice for multilayer. And i am kind of bored by games like CoH or the new comand and conquer. They are pretty, but realistic, no way. But none of these titles is in ToW gameplay genre. And i dont think graphics in ToW are worst than Warcraft 3, the unit textures and some effects (like the water) are very nice. Maybe if the tanks where painted pynk or fluerescent blue some people would like it more. But those people can play CoH and Command and conquer 3. The others who like it this way dont have more options. And yes Rollstoy and Reichenberg, we may be old fashioned but i like being this way ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chanss Posted March 30, 2007 Share Posted March 30, 2007 Seems to been written by a complete moron who did not have any interest in reality geard RTS, lets hope the idiot keeps herself to FPS crap shooters in the future. [ March 30, 2007, 02:41 PM: Message edited by: chanss ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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