StarDestroyer.Net BBS

If you're wondering about the quotation marks it's because it was a site exclusive for Yahoo! Games which promptly croaked from server overload about 15 minutes after the damn thing went live.

http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/call ... emo/533701

I guess they couldn't do something intelligent like just seed a torrent or at least have a server that could handle the load.

It wasn't too shabby. Though enemies are still laughably easy to kill, even for untrained militiamen, this doesn't detract too much. The attention to detail is apparent, and welcome. Though it seems certain aspects that were advertised about MP were not in single player. (For instance, I couldn't shoot through the wood boards the insurgents were using for cover.)

One thing I love about the CoD series, the developers of those games are able to squeeze obsenely good graphics and textures out of the engine while still allowing the game to be accessible. I couldn't max the game out, but medium-high settings still allowed my computer to run at a reliable framerate.

Ugh, CoD2 is just too shiny for me to run it on even medium high. I'd be above 40fps all the time but once I'm in a shady spot or a dark room and an SMG blares in my face the lighting effects crash it below 30 instantaneously and at that range it's lethal every time.

Direct-X 7 to the rescue!

The damn thing is crash happy on my system. I try to skip the intro, it crashes. I try to run Xfire and Call of Duty 4 at the same time, it crashes. I kill a teammate on accident, the screen turns dark, I press something... it crashes.

CaptHawkeye wrote:It wasn't too shabby. Though enemies are still laughably easy to kill, even for untrained militiamen, this doesn't detract too much. The attention to detail is apparent, and welcome. Though it seems certain aspects that were advertised about MP were not in single player. (For instance, I couldn't shoot through the wood boards the insurgents were using for cover.)

One thing I love about the CoD series, the developers of those games are able to squeeze obsenely good graphics and textures out of the engine while still allowing the game to be accessible. I couldn't max the game out, but medium-high settings still allowed my computer to run at a reliable framerate.

I think part of the reason the enemies are easy to kill is due to the increased lethality of automatic weapons compared to the semi-automatics of WWII. Also, it may have been my imagination but I think I killed one or two guys by firing through boards its just harder because you can't see them when they're ducked all the way down and I think the bullets are less lethal when going through stuff before they hit a baddy. Also, I don't know if COD2 had this feature, I don't remember it, but in COD4 you can toss grenades that are at your feet back at the enemy.

COD4 does have beautiful graphics and the same intense gameplay as COD2. Plus it was very cool firing Javelins and seeing them in top-attack mode, and seeing a Cobra gunships firing rockets and cannon right above my head. A

Weren't the weapons of WW2 (ballistically) more lethal though? .30-06 is more energetic than .223 if I'm not mistaken

[R_H] wrote:Weren't the weapons of WW2 (ballistically) more lethal though? .30-06 is more energetic than .223 if I'm not mistaken

I should have said firepower rather than lethality. The AK used by the enemies uses 7.62mm rounds so it remains as lethal as a WWII bullet. Plus your squad in COD4 is equipped with SAWs which considerably ups the firepower of a modern squad compared to one in WWII.
IIRC the .223 has higher velocity and better penetration. Also, with each pull an automatic is putting out 2 or 3 bullets for every bullet a WWII rifle could fire. It is true though that WW2 rifles had better knockdown power than modern rifles, and generally better range because of the greater mass and thus momentum of the bullet.

NRS Guardian wrote: I should have said firepower rather than lethality. The AK used by the enemies uses 7.62mm rounds so it remains as lethal as a WWII bullet.

The classic AK-47/AKM uses a 7.62x39mm round, an intermediate assault rifle round that only came into common usage by the Soviets after the end of the war. It bears little resemblance to WW2 rifle ammunition used by any side.

Threadjack continuing

Was the assault rifle ammunition of WW2 more powerful (in terms of joules) than the ammunition today?

Upon playing the demo a second time and paying more attention, I did indeed notice matieral penetration. The bullets from the AK-47 I fired were able to go through three consecutive walls and ice the dude on the AA gun plus the whole squad protecting him. Who needs grenades these days?

Forgot to mention I played the demo and thought it rocked, though it sucks how we can only apparently play as the Yanks and the Poms.

I finally got ahold of it, and I'm going to break with the bandwagon here a bit and say I was thoroughly underwhelmed. I have a number of quibbles of varying impact, but by the far the worst offender is the gameplay itself.

It's all there: Cinematic sequences of bullets-flying, guns-a-blazing action, pretty, shiny graphics and effects (too shiny, actually, when it comes to people - ugh), atmospheric setting, waves of bad guys and friendlies who actually do stuff are everywhere, and you're in the center of the action and doing all the cool stuff.

...Exactly like in Call of Duty 1. The gameplay has not changed, or more importantly, improved in the slightest. It's the exact same game with new graphics and a new setting. This would not be nearly so offensive if it had not been years since the original game. Not only is it just a rehash, it's a bland, uninspired rehash from the looks of it. I expect a certain level of more refined game design, improvement upon previous implementations (even if they rocked at the time), and updating to follow modern trends at least a little bit.

It's a lot like the problem with Armed Assault. It's just... shinier OpFlash. Not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, but billing it as the Next Big Thing is just a recipe for failure.

At least it looks like the multiplayer is a significant improvement over the original, which the main selling point of the game for me.

And for the record, quibbles:

• It feels very jerky. Performance is fine on my system, but moving around feels like I've just joined a 400+ ping multiplayer game.
• It feels like I'm wearing blinders. I feel like I've got even less peripheral vision than is normal for an FPS, and looking around just doesn't feel smooth.
• M4 seems off. Don't like the sound, don't like its behavior as compared with AA, BF2, etc.
• Fucking shiny people. Oh how I yearn for the day when someone makes a game where camouflaged soldiers will actually appear camouflaged, especially at very long range. I'm reminded of the animation tricks used in Disney-style cartoons -- you can always tell which parts of any given scene are going to be dynamic, because they blatantly stand out from the surrounding art. Also, people aren't made from plastic.
• WW2 mentality. I'm getting bullets sprayed at me like I'm charging a German MG42 nest. It doesn't feel like modern warfare so much. This may just be a problem with the AI, since they seem to like to shoot and throw grenades at me and me alone, even if I'm in complete cover in the dark and concealed.
• Don't like the grenade mechanics. It's like hot-potato.
• Absurd amount of ammo for M203.

I'm getting bullets sprayed at me like I'm charging a German MG42 nest.

Doesn't the Section Automatic Weapon serve a similar purpose to those MG42 nests, albeit using smaller bullets than the FN MAG? Assuming the enemy has a similar weapon of course.

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:Doesn't the Section Automatic Weapon serve a similar purpose to those MG42 nests, albeit using smaller bullets than the FN MAG? Assuming the enemy has a similar weapon of course.

Sure, with assault rifles and LMGs there exists the greater capacity for volume of fire. And to the game's credit, that kind of fire did have me genuinely pinned a few times (but that was rather balls in the end given that apparently I and I alone am capable of running out into the middle of fucking nowhere and physically planting some stupid beacon so a couple of lame Super Cobras (ugh again - stop fucking wanking to USMC goddamnit, and use the Army's infinitely superior Apaches FFS) can come in (since they're apparently too dim-witted to launch one fucking TOW at a single AAA position but it's all fine and dandy if they waltz around in the middle of a city crawling with RPG-armed infantry).

/rant

Brother-Captain Gaius wrote:

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:Doesn't the Section Automatic Weapon serve a similar purpose to those MG42 nests, albeit using smaller bullets than the FN MAG? Assuming the enemy has a similar weapon of course.

Sure, with assault rifles and LMGs there exists the greater capacity for volume of fire. And to the game's credit, that kind of fire did have me genuinely pinned a few times (but that was rather balls in the end given that apparently I and I alone am capable of running out into the middle of fucking nowhere and physically planting some stupid beacon so a couple of lame Super Cobras (ugh again - stop fucking wanking to USMC goddamnit, and use the Army's infinitely superior Apaches FFS) can come in (since they're apparently too dim-witted to launch one fucking TOW at a single AAA position but it's all fine and dandy if they waltz around in the middle of a city crawling with RPG-armed infantry).

/rant

Admittedly, I found that the they had to bring the Super Cobras up close, practically kissing the enemy, to be a bit absurd. I mean, can't they fire a distance away without getting pelted by an RPG round by accident?

On further play throughs, I've got to say I'm less impressed than I first was, for the reasons cited by Gaius - in addition, this is a small thing but it just smacks of lazy - why does the enemy have M249s as their fixed machine guns?

It's like they deliberately set out to make this game exactly the same as WW2 - right down to the "set explosives to destroy the AA gun" objective that they always use. It's boring as hell.

I played it yesterday and I quite enjoyed it, mainly because this time around the setting wasn't WW2. I liked it how that when the enemy fires at your position finding a hiding spot is hard since the enemy can fire through walls and some other objects and not even cars are safe to hide behind. I agree that some objectives are a rehash of the previous games but why not if AA is still being used?

What I would like to see is a more detructible environment. I want to fire my RPG and watch as the wall crumbles. I want to drive a tank through houses. My path blocked? Well we can either drive a tank through or plant explosives and create a new path.

Meh, overall I liked this demo and hope that it gets better with the full game. Now I wonder how good the next Soldier of Fortune is going to be. Is there a demo out for this one?