Discussion
Ok its been out since friday, and Ive spent over 5 hours playing it in total.
Slight irrations with logging in to my account, and helicopter control with my currently pants joystick, are the only downsides so far.
Graphics are stunning. Im playing on an athlon FX53 using a 6800gt with 1gb ram..so its a good system (but not the best)
Its running at 1600x1200 and the frame rate is very smooth with detail up high. Effects, shadows, and reflections are awesome.
Gameplay, whilst it may seem similar to 1942 or BV initially is now much improved and much more tactical.
The main difference is the ability to join a 6 man squad within each team. You can respawn to your squad wherever they are. Plus you can only talk to them or the commander with voice over IP.
I spent the first coupleof hours having a lot of fun doing the usual running round on my own, sniping and generally playing selfishly. It was only when I joined a squad and understood how well the order system from a commander works, that i really appreciated how much of an advance this game is.
So overall Im well impressed. Its better than I had hoped for.
Slight irrations with logging in to my account, and helicopter control with my currently pants joystick, are the only downsides so far.
Graphics are stunning. Im playing on an athlon FX53 using a 6800gt with 1gb ram..so its a good system (but not the best)
Its running at 1600x1200 and the frame rate is very smooth with detail up high. Effects, shadows, and reflections are awesome.
Gameplay, whilst it may seem similar to 1942 or BV initially is now much improved and much more tactical.
The main difference is the ability to join a 6 man squad within each team. You can respawn to your squad wherever they are. Plus you can only talk to them or the commander with voice over IP.
I spent the first coupleof hours having a lot of fun doing the usual running round on my own, sniping and generally playing selfishly. It was only when I joined a squad and understood how well the order system from a commander works, that i really appreciated how much of an advance this game is.
So overall Im well impressed. Its better than I had hoped for.
The server selection system is terrible, really awful. I avoid it whenever possible.
Commander and squad leader is great, but it kind of falls apart on public servers. The best games are those where everyone joins a squad, the squads stick together, then you can tell them to take and hold points, avoid artillery, drop supplies on them etc.
When people start doing Rambo jobs it gets a nightmare for the commander and if the enemy are organised you get quickly overrun.
Not that i'm averse to stealing a chopper and going to the enemy base to blow up their artillery
Commander and squad leader is great, but it kind of falls apart on public servers. The best games are those where everyone joins a squad, the squads stick together, then you can tell them to take and hold points, avoid artillery, drop supplies on them etc.
When people start doing Rambo jobs it gets a nightmare for the commander and if the enemy are organised you get quickly overrun.
Not that i'm averse to stealing a chopper and going to the enemy base to blow up their artillery
Played it extensiveley over the weekend.
First the problems:
Server browser is crap. Sloooooooow and the filter only seems to work every now and again.
No bots is an appaling omission. When there are 6 of you together it is a little sluggish all joining a public server when you only have an ADSL to go out on. You need bots, it is plain lazy for them to not have a coop mode like all other variations of this game. This is the biggest downer by far.
The game world is no great advancement. If a server does not even have the bots to worry about then they should have made the maps a little more dynamic. i.e. deformable buildings, fellable trees, I would love to see some of the huge structures such as the cranes and chimneys be colapsable, all it needs is two states and a nice animation with a radius of effect (i.e. it kills all units within 100m if it is a chimney collapsing. They should have given snipers more power but made their best spots destructable. It just still seems a long way off what it could have been and not much of an advancement at all over the other versions.
No buddy list on the public server side. How the hell are you meant to coordinate joining and see who is online, especially with the new squad based feature?
The VOIP that everyone harps on about is not good even over a LAN. A buggy pile of arse to be frank.
The Good Stuff:
They have not buggered about too much with the winning format of the game.
The commander and squads. This ties together the game and the tactics very niceley. It creats a whole new level of cooperation. Fecking annoying that you can't put this in practise against bots!
Above all I suspect mods and patches will clear the annoyances, but I am waiting for Operation Flashpoint 2 to really blow me away.
First the problems:
Server browser is crap. Sloooooooow and the filter only seems to work every now and again.
No bots is an appaling omission. When there are 6 of you together it is a little sluggish all joining a public server when you only have an ADSL to go out on. You need bots, it is plain lazy for them to not have a coop mode like all other variations of this game. This is the biggest downer by far.
The game world is no great advancement. If a server does not even have the bots to worry about then they should have made the maps a little more dynamic. i.e. deformable buildings, fellable trees, I would love to see some of the huge structures such as the cranes and chimneys be colapsable, all it needs is two states and a nice animation with a radius of effect (i.e. it kills all units within 100m if it is a chimney collapsing. They should have given snipers more power but made their best spots destructable. It just still seems a long way off what it could have been and not much of an advancement at all over the other versions.
No buddy list on the public server side. How the hell are you meant to coordinate joining and see who is online, especially with the new squad based feature?
The VOIP that everyone harps on about is not good even over a LAN. A buggy pile of arse to be frank.
The Good Stuff:
They have not buggered about too much with the winning format of the game.
The commander and squads. This ties together the game and the tactics very niceley. It creats a whole new level of cooperation. Fecking annoying that you can't put this in practise against bots!
Above all I suspect mods and patches will clear the annoyances, but I am waiting for Operation Flashpoint 2 to really blow me away.
Hello all, really really loving this game.
I agree with the comments above about the server selection screen being crap (took me 25 mins to get into a game last night), the environment not being destructable etc etc but once your into the game its awesome.
Bit annoyed about the fact that no matter how accurately calibrated my joystick is it still wobbles and moves to one side when in planes and copters, also annoys me a bit that the servers have such high pings and are quite laggy at times.
However, I am really enjoying this game. Nothing nicer than taking a plane, flying over enemy land, doing a massive parachute jump from really high, slowly dropping down to the ground (also dropping nades and using them as bombs on people), landing and hiding and then snipering people from long distance. Very good fun indeed!
Was having fun last night as a medic, running around reviving people is quite fun in an odd way. Good until you get shot by someone with a machine gun!!!
I think there are some problems with collision detection of bullets etc too sometimes, but on the whole the game is very addictive. Especially when you dabble in the squad element. Not done much of this but trying to get into it more, public servers are hard afterall to get a good squad going. Had one good squad experience where we (5 of us) got a small boat from an aircraft carrier, landed and fanned out like real marines and took down an enemy flag point. So cool!!
I agree with the comments above about the server selection screen being crap (took me 25 mins to get into a game last night), the environment not being destructable etc etc but once your into the game its awesome.
Bit annoyed about the fact that no matter how accurately calibrated my joystick is it still wobbles and moves to one side when in planes and copters, also annoys me a bit that the servers have such high pings and are quite laggy at times.
However, I am really enjoying this game. Nothing nicer than taking a plane, flying over enemy land, doing a massive parachute jump from really high, slowly dropping down to the ground (also dropping nades and using them as bombs on people), landing and hiding and then snipering people from long distance. Very good fun indeed!
Was having fun last night as a medic, running around reviving people is quite fun in an odd way. Good until you get shot by someone with a machine gun!!!
I think there are some problems with collision detection of bullets etc too sometimes, but on the whole the game is very addictive. Especially when you dabble in the squad element. Not done much of this but trying to get into it more, public servers are hard afterall to get a good squad going. Had one good squad experience where we (5 of us) got a small boat from an aircraft carrier, landed and fanned out like real marines and took down an enemy flag point. So cool!!
FourWheelDrift said:
Thing that's a bit annoying - they run out of puff way too soon when they have to run anywhere, unlike it seems the enemy...
I think I need to keep an eye out for a Gunnery Sergeant Hartman mod
"You will run further than 100 yards without stopping for a breather or a smoke!!!"
So anyone interested in a bit of Pistonheads BF2 just like GTR???
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