How good REALLY is this game?

[Kal Cyann]

Yea GR the voices can be annoying, but i prefer to have them on as it sounds better. But i do find myself shouting loudly at the screen when they keeep telling me they all kill an enemy, all 7 of them saying "gray down" etc an pausing time for each 1 just AGRHAGRHGAHGRH :hmmm:

[Pete]

You can change your options so it doesn't pause

[RedBear]

Don't know what to think about this one.

 

Had it on pre-order for what seemed like absolutely ages. The more I saw of the screenshots and dev. notes, the more i was impressed, and I couldn't wait for it to come out, and i'm hard to impress, and more than a tad fussy about what I play.

 

('n basically, I have just about all of the games of this type that exist - you name it i've got it, and completed it - house like a small software shop!)

 

8.15am, 03/10/03 it drops through the letterbox, 30 mins. later it's installed and runnning.

 

Phht! Well!!!

 

Nice cinematic intro - good start. Messed about with it for about ten minutes, then my monitor started "screaming" and making sounds like it was about to "short".

 

"Poo" pants, scream, dive behind couch. (Had a monitor blow up on me before - not very pleasant I can tell you - especially when my nose was about 2 inches from it at the time. Found myself sitting in the middle of room, with my ears "ringing" wondering how the hell I had got there).

 

Updated graphic drivers, continued playing. Little "bugs" started to "crop up" all over the place. Soon thought game was as "buggy as an anthill" - BUT THIS IS NO DIFFERENT TO ANY OTHER NEW GAME THAT IS RELEASED!!!!!!!

Reconciled myself with the fact that a patch would be probably be immediately pending.

 

Impressed with graphics, in 1024*768, 32 bit colour the game looks positively lush

pity about the camera angles - ended up playing in an almost totally zoomed out "top down mode", which was a pity 'cos the textures, etc, are breathtaking.

 

WOULD IT HAVE KILLED THEM TO PUT IN A 1st PERSON - "TROOPERS EYE VIEW" MODE, then you could actuall admire the really cool graphics - up close your squad looks excellent, espcecially in "Heavy Armour".

 

Bit miffed that you couldn't actually see what you were researching (as in the UFo games), 'cos that helped give thet game a point. (As in a reward/CARROT for the sometimes totally "pain in the butt" mission that it took to acquire it! )

 

Then everything was just "downhill" from there.

 

There seemed to be a lot of omissions from the manual, for example - the actual way to pick up K'o'd aliens (which messed up a lot of missions for me, and caused a lot of frustration) and which weapons actually required Heavy armour for their usage - because of these I actually thought that this was another bug. All because it wasn't in the manual

 

The voice characterisation of the various squad members started to get very irritating, to be fair some of it was brilliant - "Zinatul" sounds like a very distant, extremely "whiny" cousin of mine, but apart from that it sounds like you are commanding a set of misfits ranging in scope from "Lurch" (As in the "Addams Family"), to what sounds like an aging, slightly stroppy, middle-aged French farmer. Ok guys, really military. The "elite of the elite", that lot. (I Don't think!)

 

Available weaponry - initial selection was ok, but i was surprised to find that there were no "light support weapons", as in the: M249, LSW, M60, and their various generic counterparts. Why?! They are an integral part of any squad. I almost always felt that I was "seriously outgunned", almost up to the finish. Not good.

 

The "balance of forces", as in terms of the opposition that you were facing (with regard to number, armour and weaponry that they were equipped with) was at times highly unbalanced. It was ok at the start, then after the Russian "Dreamland" Base mission, everything just "went to hell". Every other alien seemed to be carrying a rocket launcher, and seemed to be able to reload it in about 0.0 seconds flat. I've actually seen one alien having three rockets in the air at one time -one about to impact, one midway, one just launched.

Result - a very quick death, and a lot of dissatisfaction.

 

"Base Missions", both "attack" and "defense" just a pain, and trying to capture/board an alien ship was something else. Many a time they could see me, launch rockets at me (by the dozen) with miraculous accuracy, and I cold not, somehow, see them, even when they were just "two" tiles diagonally away from me.

 

Oh Yeah, the overall grand global "Strategic" element. Where!!?

 

Intercepting the alien ships. Ah-ha. Gripping stuff!

 

Replay - not for a while, 'til i'm very, very bored. And even then....

 

I apologise if it looks like i am trashing this game, for I am not. The graphics engine is stunning, the plot is original, and quite well executed, but i have to keep asking myself - where is the rest of this game?

 

OVERALL, THIS IS A VERY GOOD GAME, AND IF YOU HAVEN'T EXPERIENCED ANYTHING ELSE IN THIS GENRE, THEN YOU WILL ABSOLUTELY "LAP IT UP".

 

It is "pretty", but feels as if it is only half-developed, as if somewhere along the line they either "ran out" of ideas, or development cash, or simply tried too hard to be "different", from previous offerings in this genre. Sometimes, different is not what we want!

 

Overall - too much "stick", not enough "carrot", and the "Cherry on top" (as in the "ending", which like Shakira, is short, but very nice) was that miniscule it wasn't worth fighting, or waiting for.

 

However, after saying all that, someone tell me when either the next part, or the sequel to this is coming out, please, and i'll definitely pre-order it, for this was very promising. They'll get it right next time!

 

 

Have to wait for "Fallout 3" now.

[Smurf]

Well said. My experience exactly, only with more bugs and less exploding monitors.

 

Also wondered why I was being told that there were 'high styles' around all the time. Never found any.

[Ghostrider]

Ghostrider, yes u can turn voices off - definitely recommended to do this

Thanks for the INFO - I will probably do it after short time playing

[Pete]

RedBear - just one thing to point out - they're not the elite of the elite, they're what's left of humanity and that's why they're more rubbish thatn a rubbish tip on a very rubbishy day

 

They are just lucky survivors who've found weaponery and that's why you're training them up as you go along - hence why they sound like everyday, untrained civilians

 

I too await a sequel...

[RedBear]

Hee Hee Hee !!!! :

 

Funnily enough, I got that idea pretty quickly. Yeah I grasp the concept, and did so straight away.

 

I just don't HAVE TO LIKE IT, do i? :hmmm:

 

I, personally, 'n this is just me (my own view now), would've been a wee bit more impressed if they were just a teeny bit more military sounding :alien2: :inlove: and less "hammed up" ???

 

The voice characterisation still doies set me a wee bit on edge, though.

 

Probably just me being a pain as usual.

[Pete]

Hehe, just one of those things I guess

 

Jeez... any smilies you missed off there? (no need to exhaust the list in your next post )

[RedBear]

Oops, sorry Pete!

 

Guess I'm just a happy "smilie" kind o' guy.

 

Think Iwas just trying to demonstrate the depth of frustration, and emotion that this particular title engenders in me.

 

Instead of just being "pretty", to look at, and an "ok" to "very creditable attempt" in my estimation, this could've been an absolutely "epic", "ripsnorter" of a game that could have made an impact as great, if not greater than any of its "ancestors" or "peers", in this particular genre, with just a wee bit more development time, and a hell of a lot more conceptual market research.

 

So much promise, but ........

 

Hope they listen!

 

Oh well, i'm looking forward to the sequel already. Just have to wait and see.