First Impressions

[aka_tom_w]

For the First time I saw "Buddy Aid" in action. (there is an actual animation sequence for buddy aid and you can zoom in and watch it!)

If you get a chance, and if you watch closely, you can see CPR motions and the attending soldier attempt to wrap bandages (around in a circular motion) around a phantom limb, the arm or leg is actually present because the victim is down, but the buddy aid is really stirring to watch. I saw it just now in Road to Berlin.

Bloody fantastic I would say!

[Asmodeus]

CMBB has now officially met it's match for me.

The demo gave a fast experience to CMx2 and I have to say, it was easy, the all-new system (of CMx2 for me) was fast to learn and .. fun!

Congratulations for BFC on this installment.

I'd think that Battle for Normandy alone gives us a ten or so years of gaming, and that there's actually coming several modules is just something amazing!

And let the BFC's coffers not be kaput, but filled with riches! Hurrah!

[Agua]

Graphics and animation are damned near stunning guys.

It runs surprisingly well in realtime on my 8 year old 2.2G P4 with everything cranked max, AA, AntF, except resolution I've reduced to 1200 x 1024 (laggy on high res levels).

As I've had to grab a few minutes here and there, I'm only 6 minutes into the Road to Berlin scenario and have just received first fire on a Sherman (and not a clue where it came from), but so far it is meeting all heightened standards your customer base has come to expect from BFC. I have absolutely no doubt that a fuller experience with the game will leave me with the same impression.

A++++

[noxnoctum]

Man this really REALLY REALLY amps me up for the East front game lol. That will be amazing. Maybe we'll even have co-play and an actual multiplayer lobby by then .

[StellarRat]

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and CMBN is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief, That thou her maid art far more fair than she: Be not her maid, since she is envious; Her vestal livery is but sick and green And none but fools do wear it; cast it off. It is my game, O, it is my love!

[noxnoctum]

I should also add that the music is WAY better than that awful "Arab Rock" I had to put up with till I was told how to put in custom music lol.

However I eagerly look forward to "speech" mods like CMSF had... I'm already starting to go crazy from the "Watch the flanks men" . It's like the same irritating officer time traveled back to WW2!

[Erik Springelkamp]

I should also add that the music is WAY better than that awful "Arab Rock"

I must admit that I have no idea what music there was, if there was any.

I consider that perfect.

[Cull]

I've only played the training scenario so I'm going to hold any detailed feedback for now, but as far as my first impression?

I think "spectacular" is pretty appropriate.

/fanboy on

Though there's probably no way to fully convey to game developers the level of appreciation they deserve----aside from sending them piles of our cash, of course----I'll do my best by playing the hell out of this, combined with commencing immediate whining for the first module.

I hereby authorize a weekend pass for the entire company. Report at 0800 Monday to resume your duties.

Seriously though: congratulations, and thanks to everyone involved. You've made this old wargamer's year.

/fanboy off

Now go fix those rocking-horse tanks. They look ridiculous.

[noxnoctum]

I must admit that I have no idea what music there was, if there was any.

I consider that perfect.

It's only in the menus and loading screen.

[Moth]

Thanks for the answers everyone!

[AstroCat]

I do have a comments on the SFX.

I do think the raw samples sound good, but there is no ambience so they all sound too "up front" to me, and not enough depth of field. I think they would be better with even a bit of reverb added even though I know there is no actual environmental sound engine, which of course would be just awesome.

[guachi]

Same obnoxious controls for moving around the map that made me stop playing the CM:SF demo after one scenario.

If you have a large screen, waving the mouse all over it is a pain and the keyboard controls are awful (I'm left-handed). After wanting to kill myself from playing the CM:SF demo, I've been playing CM:BO for the past week and, despite not playing the game in 10.5 years, I found the controls much better to work with.

The on-screen arrows from CMx1 are gone with mouse control replaced by having to wave your mouse all over the screen. And the keyboard controls don't seem to be synched. What I mean is that the screen rotates quickly but moves side to side slowly. What a mess.

Can't say I'm happy to see CM:BN with the same controls as CM:SF.

Also, I can't play in windowed mode, so lots of alt-tabbing nonsense.

[Sakai007]

First impression.......AWESOME!!! Same as the second and third impressions as well. I love CMSF, and now I love CMBN. The fragility of infantry is something I will have to learn, since my body armored pixel truppen of CMSF don't die quite as easily, but I feel that for a WWII strategy game, there is nothing else out there that compares with CMBN on the tactical level.

[Erik Springelkamp]

If you have a large screen, waving the mouse all over it is a pain

Use left-click-drag to move the camera, right-click-drag to pan.

[guachi]

Use left-click-drag to move the camera, right-click-drag to pan.

Thanks. That's a little better. Unfortunately the screen response is the exact opposite of what I expect. Clicking and moving the mouse towards you (towards the bottom of the screen) has the effect of making the map move away from you. It's not dragging it's repelling.

[ratdeath]

Played a internet game, realtime against my brother.

Battle: Busting the bocage.

Was great fun, he is a CMx1 veteran while I have played a few CMAK battles and I managed to win a major german victory Perhaps a unbalanced battle for the Americans.

It plays ok on my machine, settings Best on models and textures. Didn't notice any poor performance and was to busy having fun to even notice the FRAPS fps meter in my G15 display.

Spec:

• Windows 7 Pro x64
  
• QX9650
  
• GTX260 (1680x1050)
  
• 4gb DDR3
  
• Intel SSD
  
• Asus Maximus Extreme X38
  
• SoundBlaster X-FI
  

[tarzan]

great Demo - could somebody please translate some of the 'standard CMBN' German screams of agony or panic that are orginating from behind the Hedgerows that I am pounding with my Shermans?

I know I am attriting these units but I want to differentiate between when the Germans cry 'I'm hit!' and 'there's too many of them!'

Thanks!

[slug88]

Use left-click-drag to move the camera, right-click-drag to pan.

Thanks. That's a little better. Unfortunately the screen response is the exact opposite of what I expect. Clicking and moving the mouse towards you (towards the bottom of the screen) has the effect of making the map move away from you. It's not dragging it's repelling.

Don't think of it as dragging the map; rather you're dragging the floating camera. Then it makes sense . Keep using it and I bet you'll feel at home in no time with the method Erik mentioned. IMHO, once you get used to it, it's far superior to the CMx1 system.

[jakebullet]

just 1 word

AWESOME

[Sirocco]

Maxed out, frame rate of between 15 and 40 depending on what was on screen, it looks very good. Not sure about the trees which seem a bit too pastel at times, but overall it's breathtaking. I was really looking forward to seeing a Marder in action, and I wasn't disappointed. Beautiful. It's worth using WEGO just to review the action.

On the minus side, right click doesn't bring up the popup menu. I imagine it's tied to the spacebar, as I believe it was when it was put back into CMSF. No line from a HQ to its controlled units, which means no clear visible cue as to what was a link to what. Quick and easy clarity is a good thing.

Possible bug? I found a dismounted Marder and when I eventually found the crew the dismount button was disabled. I imagine it should change to mount when out of the vehicle, but then the deploy button sticks with the same text, so who knows.

In general I'd like one or two things to be at a glance, not RTFM. But overall it's all looking very good.

[noxnoctum]

You can PROBABLY change the spacebar to right click somewhere in the controls.

Keep in mind too that you can completely change the hotkeys, to the point where you have no need for the menu at all.

I switched to the "alternate hotkeys" (go into your game folder, you'll see it, just rename it "hotkeys" and rename your "hotkeys" file to something else, unless you don't care about losing it) and then did some further modifying of my own. I now have everything of importance tied to a hotkey, and never have to use the menu at all.

[SlowMotion]

One thing I saw as big improvement from CMx1 games is how difficult it's to spot AT guns. If I remember correctly in CMx1 many guns were spotted after their first kill. Now guns can be much more useful.

Another thing I noticed is that it's possible to target surrendered enemy units (before the white flag shows and those units then disappear), but no shots are fired. I don't know if this is a bug or not. Player just has to be careful when selecting targets NOT to target these units if real targets are visible.

[noxnoctum]

I targeted units that had their hands thrown up but they didn't fire... maybe it's there because sometimes a unit can only "partially" surrender? (i.e. only one guy out of 3 for example).

Dunno though, every time I captured a guy the rest of his squad/team had been slaughtered.

[MikeyD]

No line from a HQ to its controlled units, which means no clear visible cue...

The UI lower right has a voice, sight and radio icon displaying how exactly you're in contact with the higher-ups, and either green or red light for the links to your platoon, company, etc. HQ. The HQ units get a central UI display listing their respective lower units and who is-and-isn't linked. If you click on the unit name in the UI you jump right to the unit.

A German AT platoon CO, for example, might have as many as six units inder his command. CMx1-style HQ connection lines would look like as spiderweb in that case

[Sirocco]

I understand in general how this stuff works, but the great thing about CMx1 - or at least one of them - was how accessible it all was. I know the complexity has increased a bit but I miss the simplicity of how things were done before. No choice but to get used to it, of course.