Mon Dec 24 2007, 11:17 AM
OK, so before the holiday vacation, I tried out a couple of games at my work place (yes, I said work place). So, I'll have my impressions, and hopefully those of you who have played the retail (a.k.a full versions) product of such games or you too have played the demos, give your insight of how good it is.
Battlefield 2142
I played this multiplayer demo the longest, seeing as the only other demo I played in the Battlefield series was Battlefield 1942 (heh, 200 years apart), of all the demos I played - simply because: a.) I suck at FPS; b.) the best I've been able to pull off is roughly 15 kills in the last server I joined; c.) I want to improve my hand-eye coordination (
).
Now, in the multiplayer demo, there are two game modes that are available through multiplayer: Conquest and Titan. In addition, there is only one map to play on, as it is a demo: Sidi Power Plant.
(This a general overview, I may have missed out some points. For everything else, there's Wikipedia).
Conquest is sort of like capture-the-flag but instead of just one flag, there are many flags - and you sort of capture flags, but you don't run around with the map and bring it back to your base like how Quake 3 CTF is. Two teams, the EU and the PAC, and their players in the team must fight it out in the map to capture spawnpoints by standing near stationary flags all around the map. Personally, I didn't like this mode because: a.) I suck at FPS; b.) I get killed many times; c.) I suck at one-on-one combat. Hopefully, since I played a lot of the other game mode, I can be a bit better than when I first played it.
Titan is sort of a combination of Conquest but instead of capturing flags, you capture Anti-Titan Missile complexes around the map. A Titan is each team's flying warships that can (slowly) be maneuvered around the map. Each Titan has a number of anti-aircraft and air-to-ground defense turrets, and along with a powerful forcefield that is immune to conventional weapons (wielded by the player) except for the Anti-Titan missiles. Usual game play in summary is this: both teams try to control as many Anti-Titan missile silos, missile silos fire at a constant rate to bring down the opposing Titan's forcefields; once the forcefield is down for either Titan, teams will either attempt to board (or defend) the Titan to assault/prevent parties on board the Titan to destroy/defend four vital reactor consoles that lead to the vital Titan reactor core - or, players will continue to battle it out on the ground and try to control as many missile silos to eventually destroy either Titan to win the game.
Now, if you're like me where you a.) suck at FPS and b.) suck at one-on-one combat; the Titan mode seems much better. The reason being, at least for the beginning of the game, you are relatively safe inside a heavily defended Titan. And besides, I'm a better defensive player than I am an offensive player - if you ever catch me playing such an FPS, don't count on me (yet) to be up at point to lead the patrol. I know that BF2142 is a team-oriented game, but sometimes it's every man (or woman) for him or herself. Usually players in the game board an air transport or gun ship and immediately take off, even though there are players using the in-game messaging system with default messages saying "I need a ride!" or "Requesting pick up". Usually players will wait if they see a group of players running toward their vehicle and say, "Get in!", "You there! Pile in!", or "Pile in!".
All in all, even though you can not advance past the rank of Private, seeing as how the demo multiplayer servers do not save your progress, BF2142 is a pretty fun game, yet still a demo, it's still a very good representation of the game.
---
World in Conflict
I heard a lot about this game, so I decided to try it out. It's more or less based on the Cold War crisis, except that the Cold War continued instead of ending. Instead of gathering resources, like in StarCraft, you are given a steady amount of reinforcement points depending on whether you capture strategic points, hold and defend a certain building, or complete objectives. Units are sent to the battlefield by air, once the player has enough reinforcement points for a particular unit, and are dropped to a given area.
The campaign mode really gets things rolling - there are about three or four missions in the demo, so it took me about 4 hours to complete - the player is introduced to a city environment where the first objective is to take and defend a gas station, and if possible, eliminate an enemy sniper in a nearby tower. What's interesting, is that while the player is deciding what to do, there are other battles going on in the same map by AI. The player can upgrade or choose various support resources, considering they obtain tactical aid points. Tactical aid points are usually obtained when a.) one of the player's units destroys an enemy unit; b.) they complete an objective; or c.) capturing strategic points. Such support resources include artillery barrage, smart bombs, anti-tank aircraft, and so forth.
The interesting points about WIC, is the fact that the environment is completely destructible. Houses that ground troops barricade themselves in are vulnerable to an enemy artillery barrage, or to a nearby tank firing upon their position. Another is the usual tactic of how the high ground, forests, and so forth can be an advantage to a commander in a time of battle.
What I find is that the AI in the campaign mode is predictable. Once you see they come from four different locations at certain times, you say to yourself: "Great, the enemy comes mainly from the north, but there are allied troops that are defending the east and partially at the south". So, you bring in some troops and dig in to defend those points. Usually the AI will either retreat and come back with a counter-attack, or your defensive lines will cave under the pressure from the initial attack.
Graphic-wise, it's great, however once there's a large battle (like the one toward the end of the demo) the system I played it on began to struggle - I was able to get about 5 frames per second until I went to an area that didn't have much engagement from enemy forces. Now, I know I would have gotten better results if I had a consumer graphics card in the system, instead it was a business-class graphics card - nVidia Quadro NVS 110M. Oh well, all in all, it was an enjoyable game.
---
Company of Heroes
I've played Codename Panzers: Phase 1, but I really enjoyed CoH, maybe because I enjoyed a game also made by Relic called Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War. Another reason of why I enjoyed it, is that the troops themselves find cover; in Codename Panzers, for example, if I had an anti-tank squad, and I ordered them to attack an incoming enemy tank, they would lie in the middle of the street and attack. In CoH, the troops usually will find cover first, then attack.
The resource points one had to capture to bring in manpower, munitions, and oil to keep your company well supported and to bring in new troops. Personally, I thought that the demo was a bit too short. You start off the the D-Day invasion at Omaha, and attempt to move 25 troops up the beach. It took me roughly 20 minutes to get 27 troops up to the beach. Thankfully, I somehow managed to bring up a lone sniper, and had him go around and complete some objectives. The two engineer squads I had used satchel charges to take out the two Flak 88's that were part of my objectives. At the end of that mission, it stated I had accumulated 1,300 casualties for Able Company.
The second and final mission of the demo, was the Battle of Carentan, primarily the defense of it - the game starts off with the player's team already in Allied-occupied Carentan. Instead of playing Able Company, like in the last mission, the player assumes the role of Fox Company which dropped in from an air transport hours before the D-Day invasion instead of landing on the beach of Omaha like Able Company. The objective is to hold Carentan from a counterattack at all costs until Able Company comes in to link up and reinforce.
For myself, I lost the town square (by enemy artillery barrage), and barely managed to defend the church until just in the nick of time when my north and east defensive lines were almost broken, Able Company came in from Omaha to help relieve some of the pressure from four StuG tanks that were diminishing my troops.
All in all, the campaign for CoH was very enjoyable, although short. I've saved progress in a skirmish game I have played for over 6 hours, at first I struggled, but now I'm on the outskirts of the enemy base. The skirmish game ends when I return to work on January 2nd.
---
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
This is a short review for CoD4: it's great. Although it's not WWII, it's still a great game to play, even though I played the demo, it seems promising. I've played CoD1 and CoD2 for the PC, now if CoD3 could only be ported to the PC, I'd like to see how well that goes as well.
----------
Some other games I still have yet to try out: The Witcher demo, Crysis demo, Supreme Commander demo.
----------
If you have any other demo reviews you'd like to contribute, go right ahead.
Battlefield 2142
I played this multiplayer demo the longest, seeing as the only other demo I played in the Battlefield series was Battlefield 1942 (heh, 200 years apart), of all the demos I played - simply because: a.) I suck at FPS; b.) the best I've been able to pull off is roughly 15 kills in the last server I joined; c.) I want to improve my hand-eye coordination (
).Now, in the multiplayer demo, there are two game modes that are available through multiplayer: Conquest and Titan. In addition, there is only one map to play on, as it is a demo: Sidi Power Plant.
(This a general overview, I may have missed out some points. For everything else, there's Wikipedia).
Conquest is sort of like capture-the-flag but instead of just one flag, there are many flags - and you sort of capture flags, but you don't run around with the map and bring it back to your base like how Quake 3 CTF is. Two teams, the EU and the PAC, and their players in the team must fight it out in the map to capture spawnpoints by standing near stationary flags all around the map. Personally, I didn't like this mode because: a.) I suck at FPS; b.) I get killed many times; c.) I suck at one-on-one combat. Hopefully, since I played a lot of the other game mode, I can be a bit better than when I first played it.
Titan is sort of a combination of Conquest but instead of capturing flags, you capture Anti-Titan Missile complexes around the map. A Titan is each team's flying warships that can (slowly) be maneuvered around the map. Each Titan has a number of anti-aircraft and air-to-ground defense turrets, and along with a powerful forcefield that is immune to conventional weapons (wielded by the player) except for the Anti-Titan missiles. Usual game play in summary is this: both teams try to control as many Anti-Titan missile silos, missile silos fire at a constant rate to bring down the opposing Titan's forcefields; once the forcefield is down for either Titan, teams will either attempt to board (or defend) the Titan to assault/prevent parties on board the Titan to destroy/defend four vital reactor consoles that lead to the vital Titan reactor core - or, players will continue to battle it out on the ground and try to control as many missile silos to eventually destroy either Titan to win the game.
Now, if you're like me where you a.) suck at FPS and b.) suck at one-on-one combat; the Titan mode seems much better. The reason being, at least for the beginning of the game, you are relatively safe inside a heavily defended Titan. And besides, I'm a better defensive player than I am an offensive player - if you ever catch me playing such an FPS, don't count on me (yet) to be up at point to lead the patrol. I know that BF2142 is a team-oriented game, but sometimes it's every man (or woman) for him or herself. Usually players in the game board an air transport or gun ship and immediately take off, even though there are players using the in-game messaging system with default messages saying "I need a ride!" or "Requesting pick up". Usually players will wait if they see a group of players running toward their vehicle and say, "Get in!", "You there! Pile in!", or "Pile in!".
All in all, even though you can not advance past the rank of Private, seeing as how the demo multiplayer servers do not save your progress, BF2142 is a pretty fun game, yet still a demo, it's still a very good representation of the game.
---
World in Conflict
I heard a lot about this game, so I decided to try it out. It's more or less based on the Cold War crisis, except that the Cold War continued instead of ending. Instead of gathering resources, like in StarCraft, you are given a steady amount of reinforcement points depending on whether you capture strategic points, hold and defend a certain building, or complete objectives. Units are sent to the battlefield by air, once the player has enough reinforcement points for a particular unit, and are dropped to a given area.
The campaign mode really gets things rolling - there are about three or four missions in the demo, so it took me about 4 hours to complete - the player is introduced to a city environment where the first objective is to take and defend a gas station, and if possible, eliminate an enemy sniper in a nearby tower. What's interesting, is that while the player is deciding what to do, there are other battles going on in the same map by AI. The player can upgrade or choose various support resources, considering they obtain tactical aid points. Tactical aid points are usually obtained when a.) one of the player's units destroys an enemy unit; b.) they complete an objective; or c.) capturing strategic points. Such support resources include artillery barrage, smart bombs, anti-tank aircraft, and so forth.
The interesting points about WIC, is the fact that the environment is completely destructible. Houses that ground troops barricade themselves in are vulnerable to an enemy artillery barrage, or to a nearby tank firing upon their position. Another is the usual tactic of how the high ground, forests, and so forth can be an advantage to a commander in a time of battle.
What I find is that the AI in the campaign mode is predictable. Once you see they come from four different locations at certain times, you say to yourself: "Great, the enemy comes mainly from the north, but there are allied troops that are defending the east and partially at the south". So, you bring in some troops and dig in to defend those points. Usually the AI will either retreat and come back with a counter-attack, or your defensive lines will cave under the pressure from the initial attack.
Graphic-wise, it's great, however once there's a large battle (like the one toward the end of the demo) the system I played it on began to struggle - I was able to get about 5 frames per second until I went to an area that didn't have much engagement from enemy forces. Now, I know I would have gotten better results if I had a consumer graphics card in the system, instead it was a business-class graphics card - nVidia Quadro NVS 110M. Oh well, all in all, it was an enjoyable game.
---
Company of Heroes
I've played Codename Panzers: Phase 1, but I really enjoyed CoH, maybe because I enjoyed a game also made by Relic called Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War. Another reason of why I enjoyed it, is that the troops themselves find cover; in Codename Panzers, for example, if I had an anti-tank squad, and I ordered them to attack an incoming enemy tank, they would lie in the middle of the street and attack. In CoH, the troops usually will find cover first, then attack.
The resource points one had to capture to bring in manpower, munitions, and oil to keep your company well supported and to bring in new troops. Personally, I thought that the demo was a bit too short. You start off the the D-Day invasion at Omaha, and attempt to move 25 troops up the beach. It took me roughly 20 minutes to get 27 troops up to the beach. Thankfully, I somehow managed to bring up a lone sniper, and had him go around and complete some objectives. The two engineer squads I had used satchel charges to take out the two Flak 88's that were part of my objectives. At the end of that mission, it stated I had accumulated 1,300 casualties for Able Company.
The second and final mission of the demo, was the Battle of Carentan, primarily the defense of it - the game starts off with the player's team already in Allied-occupied Carentan. Instead of playing Able Company, like in the last mission, the player assumes the role of Fox Company which dropped in from an air transport hours before the D-Day invasion instead of landing on the beach of Omaha like Able Company. The objective is to hold Carentan from a counterattack at all costs until Able Company comes in to link up and reinforce.
For myself, I lost the town square (by enemy artillery barrage), and barely managed to defend the church until just in the nick of time when my north and east defensive lines were almost broken, Able Company came in from Omaha to help relieve some of the pressure from four StuG tanks that were diminishing my troops.
All in all, the campaign for CoH was very enjoyable, although short. I've saved progress in a skirmish game I have played for over 6 hours, at first I struggled, but now I'm on the outskirts of the enemy base. The skirmish game ends when I return to work on January 2nd.
---
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
This is a short review for CoD4: it's great. Although it's not WWII, it's still a great game to play, even though I played the demo, it seems promising. I've played CoD1 and CoD2 for the PC, now if CoD3 could only be ported to the PC, I'd like to see how well that goes as well.
----------
Some other games I still have yet to try out: The Witcher demo, Crysis demo, Supreme Commander demo.
----------
If you have any other demo reviews you'd like to contribute, go right ahead.
SimsHsia
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"I've reached field capacity!"
EZS Web Services
"I've reached field capacity!"
