Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it's a bad game or anything - a fair bit of polish, no clipping (absolutely awful idea) and a few new guns and tanks and I think it'll be an absolutely amazing game; perhaps unparalleled in its genre.
BUT...
It seems so much faster, more fluid and 'less strategic' than RO1.
Why?
Well, having played the second batch of beta maps, I have to say that they are absolutely fantastic: huge, detailed, well thought out and plenty of room for tactical deployment. Or is there? I'd say not, given that my average lifespan on any of these new maps is rarely beyond thirty seconds. In one or two games I've managed a couple of minutes but they seemed anomalies, and I think I'd wandered off into sections of the map where there was little or no action.
In RO1 (and to a greater extent DH, which is what I played most frequently) you had a great selection of huge, green (grass) or white (snow) outdoor maps that were either combined arms or, infantry or tank-only. This was fine because the balance tended to work - if you wanted tank combat, play on a tank server. This was fine because the tanks were numerous, varied and pretty well balanced (particularly in DH, with its superior, remodelled penetration system) whereas in RO1 there are only two models of tank and they're both bugged and can seemingly mow down your first two waves of infantry from across the map. I've quit at least two servers in the last hour because of this; it's incredibly annoying and nigh-on impossible to avoid.
Tank combat aside (as it's less important and I'm willing to see how things pan out after release) a bit pissed off at the fact I seem to be TKing people - by accident, I should *** - at a fairly unhealthy rate. Why? For a start, these two (three?) new maps seem incredibly dark, and despite the pretty decent range at which one can see, discerning which side a target is on is still very, very difficult. I'm not going to get into the issue of range/zoom (it's been covered in countless threads) but suffice to say there seems to be a problem if I'm a German and I shoot someone at ~40 metres away and it turns out he was a German too. Right or wrong, this would rarely have happened in RO/DH because it was much easier to see whose side people were on. Again, this isn't a rant against TWI and saying that they've screwed up, simply that it's likely my fault but I don't know what to do about it. I'm not a bad shot (on a good day) but it's pretty embarrassing when I'm racking up the TKs and then someone says 'dude, why dont u ****in look before u shoot?' - yeah, this is all well and good to say in chat, but when someone's pointing a rifle at you (and you know they can see you), you don't study their profile for long? You either shoot or run, or you're dead.
Maybe it's the lighting - although I can run the game on high/ultra fairly well, and perfectly at high or below, and I've tested numerous settings - but whereas I could hit a bird in the eye with a k98 on RO1 at about a quarter of a mile (obviously I exaggerate, but everything seemed to be at a much greater distance in that game) in RO2 I'm having serious issues at fifty metres.
Truth be told, I'm not even sure what I'm suggesting here - if anything
- but I've paid the cash and tried the beta for a few days, and I've just had a few of those games where when you combine the various issues I'm having problems with (bugs, clipping, seemingly random places where you can and can't use cover properly - and even then I seem to clip through a lot of the walls/sandbags I'm supposed to be using as cover - tanks, too many SMGs and SARs and dying faster and more consistently than in any game I've played since Tetris, I just feel like giving up for a while.
I think the issue is that in RO/DH I felt like a soldier with a purpose; I had my weapons and a map/compass and the objectives were clear (written down on the side of the map) and despite a few misgivings and the obvious limitations of the engine, the game seemed a lot crisper.
Now I've got an impossibly complex overlay (which is broken), a point scoring system which is akin to learning Sanskrit and instead of choosing a role for myself (going solo, becoming a tanker, teaming up into a little squad and hopping into a half-track, etc.) my only option is to now run straight forward with everyone else and get mowed down before my egg timer goes off. Rinse and repeat.
Oh, and to top it off the other game modes are seriously lacking. In what, I don't know, but Countdown is marginally less interesting than the TV programme of the same name (I'd be interested if someone could do some arithmetic here and find out roughly what percentage of any given game you're actually playing as opposed to waiting) and I genuinely don't understand the point of the two gameplay modes. It's not like one is CoD and the other is RO (which would be understandable, if unforgivable); the only difference appears to be pistols and a few more HUD indicators. This feels cheap, and I think there ought to be more substantive differences between the two, or simply remove 'standard.'
Finally, things I like and dislike:
+ Kill Assists. Difficult to work out exactly how they work, but it's nice to be recognised for contributing to the death of a communist.
+ Suppression fire system. Credit where it's due, this is really good and I actually think this couldn't have been made much better.
+
- Cover. A few of my friends on Steam have suggested that this seems more of a disadvantage than anything as it you're 'locked' into it, and it seems enemies can almost always see the top of your head anyway. That and the all in one cover/pick up/use button make it hazardous and ill thought-out.
- Squad Command. Perhaps this will improve over time, but all I have been able to do so far is place my marker somewhere in front of me. I have no idea if people are doing as I say, and when I am following someone else as squad leader I tend to have no idea where their marker is. So, for me, pretty useless at present.
- Bandaging. This just seems annoying, not to mention hugely unrealistic. I am shot and have seconds to live (and am literally fading to black) but can reverse this entire process indefinitely by applying a bandage in about three seconds? No. Scrap it.
- Breathing/fatigue. I haven't seen anything of the kind so far - infinite sprint and no consequences.
- Random zooming. Again, there are threads explaining this but I still don't like it, and sometimes my game will start with me zoomed in by default and I have to go into options and change an option (which I previously did before) to stop it.
- Battlefield commissions. I possibly dislike this so much because it seems pretty bugged at present, with commissions being handed out seeming at random with no relevance to a person's kill count.
Hmm, that's enough I think. As you can see there are a lot of little things that really annoy me about the game so far, offset somewhat by a few major innovations which I think are really well-handled. I think a lot of the problem here is down to my expectations (which are always far too high - I should just give up on PC games altogether) combined with the fact that I am already depressed at the lack of vehicles, and the two we do have don't work properly anyway.
6/10 so far, but fixing two or three major issues (clipping being my #1) will seriously help this game in the long run, but as it stands I will certainly eat my hat if this game is anywhere near what I expect from a release version by the 13th.
Do vote me down in your droves now, 'cus I know this was a really bitter and *****y post but I'm just being honest because I'm a bit disappointed, but I can not emphasise enough how much I love and appreciate the map design.
:IS2:
BUT...
It seems so much faster, more fluid and 'less strategic' than RO1.
Why?
Well, having played the second batch of beta maps, I have to say that they are absolutely fantastic: huge, detailed, well thought out and plenty of room for tactical deployment. Or is there? I'd say not, given that my average lifespan on any of these new maps is rarely beyond thirty seconds. In one or two games I've managed a couple of minutes but they seemed anomalies, and I think I'd wandered off into sections of the map where there was little or no action.
In RO1 (and to a greater extent DH, which is what I played most frequently) you had a great selection of huge, green (grass) or white (snow) outdoor maps that were either combined arms or, infantry or tank-only. This was fine because the balance tended to work - if you wanted tank combat, play on a tank server. This was fine because the tanks were numerous, varied and pretty well balanced (particularly in DH, with its superior, remodelled penetration system) whereas in RO1 there are only two models of tank and they're both bugged and can seemingly mow down your first two waves of infantry from across the map. I've quit at least two servers in the last hour because of this; it's incredibly annoying and nigh-on impossible to avoid.
Tank combat aside (as it's less important and I'm willing to see how things pan out after release) a bit pissed off at the fact I seem to be TKing people - by accident, I should *** - at a fairly unhealthy rate. Why? For a start, these two (three?) new maps seem incredibly dark, and despite the pretty decent range at which one can see, discerning which side a target is on is still very, very difficult. I'm not going to get into the issue of range/zoom (it's been covered in countless threads) but suffice to say there seems to be a problem if I'm a German and I shoot someone at ~40 metres away and it turns out he was a German too. Right or wrong, this would rarely have happened in RO/DH because it was much easier to see whose side people were on. Again, this isn't a rant against TWI and saying that they've screwed up, simply that it's likely my fault but I don't know what to do about it. I'm not a bad shot (on a good day) but it's pretty embarrassing when I'm racking up the TKs and then someone says 'dude, why dont u ****in look before u shoot?' - yeah, this is all well and good to say in chat, but when someone's pointing a rifle at you (and you know they can see you), you don't study their profile for long? You either shoot or run, or you're dead.
Maybe it's the lighting - although I can run the game on high/ultra fairly well, and perfectly at high or below, and I've tested numerous settings - but whereas I could hit a bird in the eye with a k98 on RO1 at about a quarter of a mile (obviously I exaggerate, but everything seemed to be at a much greater distance in that game) in RO2 I'm having serious issues at fifty metres.
Truth be told, I'm not even sure what I'm suggesting here - if anything
- but I've paid the cash and tried the beta for a few days, and I've just had a few of those games where when you combine the various issues I'm having problems with (bugs, clipping, seemingly random places where you can and can't use cover properly - and even then I seem to clip through a lot of the walls/sandbags I'm supposed to be using as cover - tanks, too many SMGs and SARs and dying faster and more consistently than in any game I've played since Tetris, I just feel like giving up for a while.I think the issue is that in RO/DH I felt like a soldier with a purpose; I had my weapons and a map/compass and the objectives were clear (written down on the side of the map) and despite a few misgivings and the obvious limitations of the engine, the game seemed a lot crisper.
Now I've got an impossibly complex overlay (which is broken), a point scoring system which is akin to learning Sanskrit and instead of choosing a role for myself (going solo, becoming a tanker, teaming up into a little squad and hopping into a half-track, etc.) my only option is to now run straight forward with everyone else and get mowed down before my egg timer goes off. Rinse and repeat.
Oh, and to top it off the other game modes are seriously lacking. In what, I don't know, but Countdown is marginally less interesting than the TV programme of the same name (I'd be interested if someone could do some arithmetic here and find out roughly what percentage of any given game you're actually playing as opposed to waiting) and I genuinely don't understand the point of the two gameplay modes. It's not like one is CoD and the other is RO (which would be understandable, if unforgivable); the only difference appears to be pistols and a few more HUD indicators. This feels cheap, and I think there ought to be more substantive differences between the two, or simply remove 'standard.'
Finally, things I like and dislike:
+ Kill Assists. Difficult to work out exactly how they work, but it's nice to be recognised for contributing to the death of a communist.
+ Suppression fire system. Credit where it's due, this is really good and I actually think this couldn't have been made much better.
+
- Cover. A few of my friends on Steam have suggested that this seems more of a disadvantage than anything as it you're 'locked' into it, and it seems enemies can almost always see the top of your head anyway. That and the all in one cover/pick up/use button make it hazardous and ill thought-out.
- Squad Command. Perhaps this will improve over time, but all I have been able to do so far is place my marker somewhere in front of me. I have no idea if people are doing as I say, and when I am following someone else as squad leader I tend to have no idea where their marker is. So, for me, pretty useless at present.
- Bandaging. This just seems annoying, not to mention hugely unrealistic. I am shot and have seconds to live (and am literally fading to black) but can reverse this entire process indefinitely by applying a bandage in about three seconds? No. Scrap it.
- Breathing/fatigue. I haven't seen anything of the kind so far - infinite sprint and no consequences.
- Random zooming. Again, there are threads explaining this but I still don't like it, and sometimes my game will start with me zoomed in by default and I have to go into options and change an option (which I previously did before) to stop it.
- Battlefield commissions. I possibly dislike this so much because it seems pretty bugged at present, with commissions being handed out seeming at random with no relevance to a person's kill count.
Hmm, that's enough I think. As you can see there are a lot of little things that really annoy me about the game so far, offset somewhat by a few major innovations which I think are really well-handled. I think a lot of the problem here is down to my expectations (which are always far too high - I should just give up on PC games altogether) combined with the fact that I am already depressed at the lack of vehicles, and the two we do have don't work properly anyway.
6/10 so far, but fixing two or three major issues (clipping being my #1) will seriously help this game in the long run, but as it stands I will certainly eat my hat if this game is anywhere near what I expect from a release version by the 13th.
Do vote me down in your droves now, 'cus I know this was a really bitter and *****y post but I'm just being honest because I'm a bit disappointed, but I can not emphasise enough how much I love and appreciate the map design.
:IS2:
