Demo review

[Ely3000]

I use the word "review" lightly here, I have spent a total of 2 hours playing it so far. Going to keep this short in case you are as addled with ADD as I am.

Positives first. Seeing the individual soldiers is the big thing here for me. Watching your men actually man the gun positions (and seeing that the guy who can't shoot manned the trigger!) adds a greater level of immersion than CM had. I called in air support and could actually see and identify the IL-2s coming in. This battlefield is just way more immersive, more "real" (and CM is great by all means). Watching the snipers sneak in to take out a gun position and realizing they had better flank the thing because their shots weren't to effective through the frontal plate? Priceless.

Negatives, and this is more like nit-picking, these aren't by any means game-breakers. The sound gets funky and very muffled sounding as you rotate the camera view around (see, nit-picks). The graphics are good, no doubt more than sufficient, but I would call them a bit dated by today's standards. They could be better, "more cinematic", looking effects. Graphics were very fluid at full setting and 1360x768 resolution (AMD 4600+ dual w/ 7600GT graphics card).

All in all, I trust between 1C and battlefront.com that the units are going to be "spec". So if the game isn't buggy (it wasn't) and had no obvious faults (only played it 2 hours), I think we are in for a good ride here. I can tell I'm going to have a lot of fun with this. Learning how the AI acts/reacts, getting my butt kicked in multi-player. Good game, thumbs up.

Elysian

[ April 18, 2007, 03:22 PM: Message edited by: Ely3000 ]

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Well Ely3000, you are certainly more entitled to call this a review then some.

I think it's a fair review, and who can ask for more?

[Field Marshal Blücher]

I mostly agree with everything you've said. The only aspect of it that I think needs work is the sound. The more I've played it, the more I enjoyed it. Getting one's butt kicked in the training missions is a sign of a good game.

[Freeboy]

I am surprised you did not like the graghics

I found the armor truly beatiful, the men due look like cartoons, but that matters little to me

[Ely3000]

Blucher, I'm with ya on the sentiment of "if yer getting yer butt kicked it's a sign of a good game", couldn't agree more.

Freeboy, I *do* like the graphics. They are just a bit outdated is all, compared to other games out there right now. I figure if you are going to espouse a game's virtues, you better get some criticism in there for credibility. For what this game is doing, the graphics are pretty and adequate (sp?).

[RavenouZ]

Yeah the game is great BUT the sound could be better in my opinion, and yes the graphics are a little old looking but i think it ads to the level of realism and feeling in a WW2 game and i think that BF and 1C have limited the complexity of the graphics so that more ppl can enjoy this very nice game.

And i don´t wanna think of what FPS you woulld get if the game had crysis styled textures after all the landscapes are MASSIVE and there is not only the troops to render there are trees and sutff too

[Freeboy]

ok are you talking aboutthe armor and grass graphics?? or jsut the men? I am confused, I think the tanks look pretty right on

[westyorksgaz]

yep pretty good demo...just a bit disappointed no town/city battles in the full game ie:Stalingrad/Berlin/Warsaw etc,,or entering buildings,,,big part of the CM series for me!!,,has a lot of pluses but a few major minuses too

[Field Marshal Blücher]

Freeboy, I think the only graphics problems anyone has are with just the men. What RavenouZ was pointing out is that if the game had much better graphics it would be correspondingly more difficult for computers to handle considering the scope of the game. I agree with you, I like the tanks a lot.

[gunnersman]

Originally posted by Ely3000:

...The sound gets funky and very muffled sounding as you rotate the camera view around

Elysian

The sound seems that way because the farther the camera is away from the action the less you will hear. When you place the camera right on top of the action the sound is louder. If you are playing the game from a birds eye view, and I imagine most of you are, the sound will not sound right. Go to options and turn the music sound down or off and turn the rest of the sound way up...and then turn the actual speaker volume way up...that'll make things more interesting. Surround sound is nice too.

[Ely3000]

Freeboy, the tanks do look right on. I just meant as far as technology has gotten lately, the game's graphics, in general, are a bit old. Like I said though, this is not game-breaking. This is still, only demo in hand, very fun. Honestly, if the tanks were represented by "T"s and the infantry by "I"s it would still likely be fun.

[JG53_Jaguar]

Hi All,

Well I just run the demo on my desktop and on my laptop and after spending about 1+ hour with the demo I'm pretty pleased so far. I wanted to say thanks to Battlefront and 1C company for allowing me to try the demo and still be able to pre-order the game - which I promptly did. I'm very pleased with the overall quality of the presentation as well as interface which is very clean and elegant. The demo performance is really great both on my desktop and on my laptop. I don't know what other people are complaining about. I have all the graphics maxed out except the grass which I left the way it was set by default. All the animation was smooth and I have absolutely no problem with FPS. Also I did not experience any sound problems:

Desktop config:

AMD FX57 (2.9Ghz), ASUS NForce 4 Ultra motherboard

2GB 400DDR

BFG 7900GTX 512MB ram

SB Audigy 2

Windows XP Pro

I don't use AA as I don't like it but anisotropic filtering is set to 16x and I use the best image quality with my video drivers.

Game Resolution: 1600 x 1200

Laptop config:

Dell Precision M90 17" mobile workstation

Intel Core Duo 2 2Ghz

1GB 667DDR

nVidia FX2500M video card 512MB ram (basically 7900GTX configured for professional graphics)

On board sound

Same graphics and video driver configuration.

Game Resolution: 1920 x1200

I'm very pleased with TOW demo and I can't wait to play tomorrow the full version.

If I can make a suggestion to few people:

Don't use Vista - it's a piece of junk stick with XP Pro at least for a few months

Disable anti-virus when playing

disable MS software firewall

disable MS security

make sure you don't have many useless services running

Now how the heck do I tell my tanks to stay still and don't move around! I haven't figured out that one yet. Love the level of detail...too many T-34s!!!!

[ April 18, 2007, 04:15 PM: Message edited by: JG53_Jaguar ]

[guttersnipe]

Honest opinion : I like it.

Have to admit it I find the camera controls a bit unwieldy & as previously stated think I might be missing out on some of the better graphical moments because the camera is jinking away (at last I understand why the pre-pub-ed videos were always jumping away from the action (I had thought the cameraman was having a fit).

Would love to see multiple waypoints enabled. Also be delighted to see the first mod with a British PIAT implemented.

Anysways .... back to my demo..

[Stug Downunder]

This game has been so long in the making I think it was originally called WW2 RTS in 1999 and there was a screenshot of a anti-tank gun near a fence in someones back yard and a grey German Sdkfz 222 somewhere in Russia.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Originally posted by guttersnipe:

Also be delighted to see the first mod with a British PIAT implemented.

I'd be surprised if they were modded in. Mostly because the PIAT is already in.

[worthy]

Just downloaded demo. Still waiting for the real thing. Went straight into the main game, I always try something out before I read the manual. I found the controls quite easy to get into, at least the basics. Move, fire, stop & start. The camera is also quite easy although I found I would have preferred to reverse the centre wheel. Pushing forward naturally feels as though it should go down. With a little practise and a look at the manual tomorrow I should be able to get the finer pionts down.

The graphics that have had some negative comments I found superior to other strategy games and certainly good enough to get into the mood of the game. Please remember the strategy comes first and if you want the best graphics going and the strategy to be complicated enough you would need some kind of super computer out of most of our price range.

The infantry in buildings has to be fixed at a later date but I`m afraid I can`t comment on the sound as the wife was watching telly when the download finished and I couldn`t wait to find my headphones. I must add that I won the scenario even though I didn`t notice some of my tanks and infantry in a truck until some had already been destroyed.

I only really took control of the tanks because I was not familiar with the game and simple wanted to do one thing at a time. There is obviously a learning curve and I will need to become used to all the finer pionts not to mention actually reading the manual tomorrow. Finally , I am not sorry I paid up front for the full game and I would much rather wait until it is right than to recieve it a couple of days earlier.

worthy

[guttersnipe]

"I'd be surprised if they were modded in. Mostly because the PIAT is already in."

Silly me - there must be a pic in the small arms gallery... oh no, wait! there isn't...

hard to tell without the full release, unless you're a beta tester...lucky s*d