Luca
2004-07-18, 17:03
I just got this today. It certainly is a visually impressive game. I know it's been out for a while, but the download site goes VERY slowly and as a result I had to let it go overnight. So this morning I tried it just after I woke up.
As I said, the graphics are stunning. The level of detail is okay, but the real kicker is the cel-shaded style. That's totally new for an FPS and it makes the game stand out. It also begs for FSAA, so you better have a fast graphics card. Even without FSAA, it's very demanding. Speaking of demanding... it seemed like it was running at a high enough framerate to be considered "playable" on my Mac (1.33 GHz PowerMac G4, Radeon 8500 64 MB, 1 GB RAM), but somehow it still seemed difficult to play. The mouse movements were too jerky or something - I wonder if there is any mouse smoothing at all?
Anyway, don't expect to play this on a machine with less than a 1 GHz G4 or anything under a 64 MB video card. I'd consider my setup to be about the practical minimum for it. Performance should improve when I get my Radeon 9800 in a few days.
However, I won't be buying this game even if the performance does improve with the new video card. Put simply, I hate the gameplay. Maybe I'm just spoiled by Call Of Duty, but the game seems... sloppy. The controls are a mess, there's no way to increase your accuracy at a long distance, and enemies take forever to kill. That's especially frustrating since the game seems to give you very little ammo. I was constantly running out because I'd shoot a guy over and over and he just wouldn't die. Plus, I can't even figure out how to save your game, and there don't seem to be any auto-save checkpoints. I went through part of the second level available (Military Base), and after dying quite a ways in, I had to start over from the beginning.
So, any other opinions on the game or the demo? How does it run on your machine, and do you plan on buying it? I've heard a number of people complain that they were completely unable to get through the first level due to it being so slow. Meanwhile, the listed "system requirements" are completely off, saying that you only need a 32 MB video card. I don't see how game companies can get away with that. Yes, the game will indeed start up and allow you to play if you have a GeForce 2MX, but it'll be a totally unplayable slideshow. It's like how some old PCs shipped with just enough RAM to boot into Windows 95, and then they couldn't run a single program without running out of memory.
As I said, the graphics are stunning. The level of detail is okay, but the real kicker is the cel-shaded style. That's totally new for an FPS and it makes the game stand out. It also begs for FSAA, so you better have a fast graphics card. Even without FSAA, it's very demanding. Speaking of demanding... it seemed like it was running at a high enough framerate to be considered "playable" on my Mac (1.33 GHz PowerMac G4, Radeon 8500 64 MB, 1 GB RAM), but somehow it still seemed difficult to play. The mouse movements were too jerky or something - I wonder if there is any mouse smoothing at all?
Anyway, don't expect to play this on a machine with less than a 1 GHz G4 or anything under a 64 MB video card. I'd consider my setup to be about the practical minimum for it. Performance should improve when I get my Radeon 9800 in a few days.
However, I won't be buying this game even if the performance does improve with the new video card. Put simply, I hate the gameplay. Maybe I'm just spoiled by Call Of Duty, but the game seems... sloppy. The controls are a mess, there's no way to increase your accuracy at a long distance, and enemies take forever to kill. That's especially frustrating since the game seems to give you very little ammo. I was constantly running out because I'd shoot a guy over and over and he just wouldn't die. Plus, I can't even figure out how to save your game, and there don't seem to be any auto-save checkpoints. I went through part of the second level available (Military Base), and after dying quite a ways in, I had to start over from the beginning.
So, any other opinions on the game or the demo? How does it run on your machine, and do you plan on buying it? I've heard a number of people complain that they were completely unable to get through the first level due to it being so slow. Meanwhile, the listed "system requirements" are completely off, saying that you only need a 32 MB video card. I don't see how game companies can get away with that. Yes, the game will indeed start up and allow you to play if you have a GeForce 2MX, but it'll be a totally unplayable slideshow. It's like how some old PCs shipped with just enough RAM to boot into Windows 95, and then they couldn't run a single program without running out of memory.