S2
06-20-2007, 11:07 AM
Hi, I posted this on another forum but will share it here. The main purpose was to give my ET playing friends an idea of how the game feels, though I think there's enough information here to elevate it to a proper 'beta feedback' post. Hopefully you'll find it useful (and that includes you devs).
Not that it matters much but I've been playing ET (and a whole host of other online shooters) for a long time. What does matter to me is the success of this game, to the point where I shelled out to FP for the privilege.
Throughout my preview I've included a range of screenshots. Just click the link to open them up. Everything was taken on high in widescreen mode, mostly with 2xAA enabled. To start things off here are a few random shots:
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f87/Copis/shot00002.jpg - Medic supply drop
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f87/Copis/shot00003.jpg - Firing the rocket launcher
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f87/Copis/shot00003-1.jpg - Firing the Railgun (neat effect)
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f87/Copis/shot00012.jpg - Strogg shield in action
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f87/Copis/shot00016.jpg - The :oppressor: laser
Graphics + Performance
The game in it's current state looks really nice on high settings which hopefully the screenshots prove. Most impressive from a technical standpoint would be the draw distance. But on a smaller scale there are a lot of special effects and little details to the graphics that you pick up on after a while. Guns steam and spark, bullets ping against metal or kick up plumes of dust and water as they hit home (not to the extent of FEAR of course). I also like how vehicles dengenerate, catch fire and smoke then eventually blow up, parts flying in all directions. Most of the textures have a gritty, detailed look to them with scratches and chipped paint etc. Since there are no ultra shiny surfaces here the dreaded plastic look of Doom 3 doesn't feature. Neither does the overuse of hard edged black shadows. The lighting appears more subtle, in fact outdoors reminds me more of Stalker or HL2 rather than Q4 and Prey.
If I had a couple of complaints it would be that the indoor sections - from bunkers, generic tunnels to factory rooms etc are rather plain in comparison to outdoors. Though if you imagine a futuristic sewage plant, you're bound to have plain concrete walls somewhere on the list. Secondly I'm concerned explosions in general don't leave blast marks where they hit. I was watching a tank firing away and though the explosions look great and feel powerful, sadly it wasn't littering the level with great big black splodges.
Performance wise I'm not sure if it's worth going into much detail. Everyone will have a different story to tell since every PC is different. Personally on my reasonably 'high end' machine (6600 dual core, 8800GTS, 2GB RAM) I seem to suffer from some occasional slowdown while indoors. This strikes me as strange considering most of the detail and action takes place outside. Due to this fact I'm putting this slight hiccup down to unoptimised beta code, probably something to do with the shadows indoors.
Sound
Hmm now this is a mixed bag. Some sounds are great, some... aren't. With my Logitech Z-2300s everything seems to have a crisp, sharp THUD to it which makes the sound effects quite unique, though in my opinion there isn't enough power there. Prinicipal offenders being the artillery explosions, the shotgun (think Doom 3 but weaker), the machinegun and the hyperblaster. One thing I love in games is distant battle noises, sadly I didn't notice many muted, echoing explosions like you might hear in HL2.
The game retains its slightly less than serious edge with the voice chat. If you liked the stuff in ET there's much more here. A new favourite of mine is "Grrr!" replacing the classic "Wunderbar!". The voices themselves are good enough. Somehow the Strogg sound comical and threatening at the same time... I don't know how. The GDF could do with yelling "Grenaaade!" more dramatically.
Interface
A big improvement over ET. Everything is cleaner and well presented, which is a good job since there's more information to display. The crosshair can be customised to an almost pointless degree. A new addition is a circular band that surrounds your aiming reticle and fills up as you perform certain actions, for example when you hack objectives or cook a grenade the band will grow.
The voice menu can be accessed with the middle mouse button by default. You then use the mouse wheel to scroll through the options, left click brings up a sub-menu from which you select your choice. There is the option to do all of this via keyboard shortcuts or a new BF2 like command rose or whatever they call it.
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f87/Copis/shot00041.jpg - The voice comms menu.
The map, fireteams, class selection etc etc... all great apart from one slight annoyance - when the round starts you're asked if you want to "create a fire team - yes or no", the problem is you don't know if anyone else has already created Alpha and often you create Beta unintentionally, requiring a few more button presses leaving and rejoining teams.
Not sure where else to put this so here goes - the victory / loss screen as it stands feels like a non-event. Wether the GDF win or lose we're greeted by a fairly bland shot of the sewer... being a regular sewer. I'd expected to visually witness the effects of our play, with the water being flushed out etc.
Weapons
The worst part of the game as it stands is the fact it's too hard, nigh on impossible to tell if you've hit something. There are hit sounds and the crosshair blinks slightly but both are drowned out by everything else and it's very hard to notice. To top it off there is no blood. Not a drop. Blood doesn't just look cool, it gives you vital feedback and it makes you feel as if you're making a devistating impact when you fire. Every close up fight I've encountered has been a strangely tame experience, simply because it feels as if you aren't hitting the enemy. There is no satisfaction in killing, no primal pleasure watching grenades blow up bodies. It's playground soldiers.
So due to this it's very hard to describe how the weapons feel, since what defines a weapon is the effect it has on things. At a rough guess they feel more realistic than ET. But perhaps that's because the distance you engage people is often closer to what you might expect from BF games. I can tell you the shotgun is a bit too weak, reyling on extremely short ranges to inflict any major damage. The rocket launchers are more realistic, with the dipping trajectory, locking on etc. The soldiers new heavy machinegun is nice enough. No longer the cumberome MG from ET, this can be fired reliably while crouched. The sniper rifles (in my experience the Railgun) are much improved. Their increase in power is balanced by the reduced visibility the scope provides.
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f87/Copis/shot00060.jpg - A screenshot I took having found a great position to prone and snipe the attacking GDF, until I was sniped in return!
There are of course more ways to kill the enemy than just the guns. Best of all is the flyer drone the Strogg CO carries. Once thrown you can fly it around right into a GDF face. To me it's a bit overpowered, as there seems to be no time limit dictating how long you can keep it out. Furthermore the enemy doesn't tend to look for tiny flying machines lurking in the shadows. The ET satchel charge with wings, a free kill.
Mines. How many times have I been killed by a mine? Not enough. A staple of ET has been relegated to the sidelines for the time being. There are new trip mines that hide around key corners waiting for suckers. But the old flower that demanded picking doesn't dictate the play anymore. I don't know if this is a terrain enforced limitation or just a shift in playing style. Strogg sometimes plant a mine thing right on the construction objective which can get tiresome.
Deployables seem to work well (when used well heh), a nice addition in my mind then. The anti-infantry turret in particular being a constant challenge to overcome. Defenders tend to chuck it down near an objective making the attacker's job all the more difficult.
Not that it matters much but I've been playing ET (and a whole host of other online shooters) for a long time. What does matter to me is the success of this game, to the point where I shelled out to FP for the privilege.
Throughout my preview I've included a range of screenshots. Just click the link to open them up. Everything was taken on high in widescreen mode, mostly with 2xAA enabled. To start things off here are a few random shots:
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f87/Copis/shot00002.jpg - Medic supply drop
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f87/Copis/shot00003.jpg - Firing the rocket launcher
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f87/Copis/shot00003-1.jpg - Firing the Railgun (neat effect)
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f87/Copis/shot00012.jpg - Strogg shield in action
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f87/Copis/shot00016.jpg - The :oppressor: laser
Graphics + Performance
The game in it's current state looks really nice on high settings which hopefully the screenshots prove. Most impressive from a technical standpoint would be the draw distance. But on a smaller scale there are a lot of special effects and little details to the graphics that you pick up on after a while. Guns steam and spark, bullets ping against metal or kick up plumes of dust and water as they hit home (not to the extent of FEAR of course). I also like how vehicles dengenerate, catch fire and smoke then eventually blow up, parts flying in all directions. Most of the textures have a gritty, detailed look to them with scratches and chipped paint etc. Since there are no ultra shiny surfaces here the dreaded plastic look of Doom 3 doesn't feature. Neither does the overuse of hard edged black shadows. The lighting appears more subtle, in fact outdoors reminds me more of Stalker or HL2 rather than Q4 and Prey.
If I had a couple of complaints it would be that the indoor sections - from bunkers, generic tunnels to factory rooms etc are rather plain in comparison to outdoors. Though if you imagine a futuristic sewage plant, you're bound to have plain concrete walls somewhere on the list. Secondly I'm concerned explosions in general don't leave blast marks where they hit. I was watching a tank firing away and though the explosions look great and feel powerful, sadly it wasn't littering the level with great big black splodges.
Performance wise I'm not sure if it's worth going into much detail. Everyone will have a different story to tell since every PC is different. Personally on my reasonably 'high end' machine (6600 dual core, 8800GTS, 2GB RAM) I seem to suffer from some occasional slowdown while indoors. This strikes me as strange considering most of the detail and action takes place outside. Due to this fact I'm putting this slight hiccup down to unoptimised beta code, probably something to do with the shadows indoors.
Sound
Hmm now this is a mixed bag. Some sounds are great, some... aren't. With my Logitech Z-2300s everything seems to have a crisp, sharp THUD to it which makes the sound effects quite unique, though in my opinion there isn't enough power there. Prinicipal offenders being the artillery explosions, the shotgun (think Doom 3 but weaker), the machinegun and the hyperblaster. One thing I love in games is distant battle noises, sadly I didn't notice many muted, echoing explosions like you might hear in HL2.
The game retains its slightly less than serious edge with the voice chat. If you liked the stuff in ET there's much more here. A new favourite of mine is "Grrr!" replacing the classic "Wunderbar!". The voices themselves are good enough. Somehow the Strogg sound comical and threatening at the same time... I don't know how. The GDF could do with yelling "Grenaaade!" more dramatically.
Interface
A big improvement over ET. Everything is cleaner and well presented, which is a good job since there's more information to display. The crosshair can be customised to an almost pointless degree. A new addition is a circular band that surrounds your aiming reticle and fills up as you perform certain actions, for example when you hack objectives or cook a grenade the band will grow.
The voice menu can be accessed with the middle mouse button by default. You then use the mouse wheel to scroll through the options, left click brings up a sub-menu from which you select your choice. There is the option to do all of this via keyboard shortcuts or a new BF2 like command rose or whatever they call it.
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f87/Copis/shot00041.jpg - The voice comms menu.
The map, fireteams, class selection etc etc... all great apart from one slight annoyance - when the round starts you're asked if you want to "create a fire team - yes or no", the problem is you don't know if anyone else has already created Alpha and often you create Beta unintentionally, requiring a few more button presses leaving and rejoining teams.
Not sure where else to put this so here goes - the victory / loss screen as it stands feels like a non-event. Wether the GDF win or lose we're greeted by a fairly bland shot of the sewer... being a regular sewer. I'd expected to visually witness the effects of our play, with the water being flushed out etc.
Weapons
The worst part of the game as it stands is the fact it's too hard, nigh on impossible to tell if you've hit something. There are hit sounds and the crosshair blinks slightly but both are drowned out by everything else and it's very hard to notice. To top it off there is no blood. Not a drop. Blood doesn't just look cool, it gives you vital feedback and it makes you feel as if you're making a devistating impact when you fire. Every close up fight I've encountered has been a strangely tame experience, simply because it feels as if you aren't hitting the enemy. There is no satisfaction in killing, no primal pleasure watching grenades blow up bodies. It's playground soldiers.
So due to this it's very hard to describe how the weapons feel, since what defines a weapon is the effect it has on things. At a rough guess they feel more realistic than ET. But perhaps that's because the distance you engage people is often closer to what you might expect from BF games. I can tell you the shotgun is a bit too weak, reyling on extremely short ranges to inflict any major damage. The rocket launchers are more realistic, with the dipping trajectory, locking on etc. The soldiers new heavy machinegun is nice enough. No longer the cumberome MG from ET, this can be fired reliably while crouched. The sniper rifles (in my experience the Railgun) are much improved. Their increase in power is balanced by the reduced visibility the scope provides.
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f87/Copis/shot00060.jpg - A screenshot I took having found a great position to prone and snipe the attacking GDF, until I was sniped in return!
There are of course more ways to kill the enemy than just the guns. Best of all is the flyer drone the Strogg CO carries. Once thrown you can fly it around right into a GDF face. To me it's a bit overpowered, as there seems to be no time limit dictating how long you can keep it out. Furthermore the enemy doesn't tend to look for tiny flying machines lurking in the shadows. The ET satchel charge with wings, a free kill.
Mines. How many times have I been killed by a mine? Not enough. A staple of ET has been relegated to the sidelines for the time being. There are new trip mines that hide around key corners waiting for suckers. But the old flower that demanded picking doesn't dictate the play anymore. I don't know if this is a terrain enforced limitation or just a shift in playing style. Strogg sometimes plant a mine thing right on the construction objective which can get tiresome.
Deployables seem to work well (when used well heh), a nice addition in my mind then. The anti-infantry turret in particular being a constant challenge to overcome. Defenders tend to chuck it down near an objective making the attacker's job all the more difficult.