The game itself is scheduled to be released on the 23rd. It's not quite done yet, but still playable (I have a copy, since a tester friend of mine passed it onto me ) The graphics are very good, and the gameplay is quite intriguing as well. It's a bit like Dystopia, but I'd say the spaceflight portion is probably one of the best things I've seen done in a HL2 mod. If you're a fan of BF2 and similar games, you'll want to check this out.
Well, its pretty neat. Newtonian flight physics are fun, but the game suffers from the same thing almost every HL2 mod has, lag. Ships and characters shudder and the computer is never really sure where anyone is. Despite this, its pretty fun. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not, but if you want to assault the enemy space ship, you fly your fighter into their hanger. It makes it pretty easy to get onboard the enemy ship, but not really in numbers and it ends up looking very silly.
After giving ES a bit more time, and playing on a good number of servers without lag, I've found it to be a really fun mod.
It does share a very basic premise with the ut map Stark mentions. It is, in fact, nothing like the UT mod. Its a good quality space simulator, with full newtonian physics (though I will admit the various thrusters that control left/right, up/down and even reverse and roll are a bit potent).
Subsystems work very much like they did in Freespace, though I think you have to disable shield arrays before you can damage the point defense turrets.
The space combat isn't complex, but its not the silly thing that the Ut2k4 assault map had. The one funky thing about the fighters is how you use them to board the enemy ship/asteriod outpost. You fly into a hanger, and jump out. Silly, no?
Objectives don't appear to be in, or least working (played a game where our team took both the asteriod outpost and the space ship, but it didn't end), however I gather that the concept is that you can defend your team's hanger from infantry assault, but the fewer people you have out in space, the fewer people you've got defending your ship's subsystems.
The infantry combat is pretty solid, with a good number of fun weapons.
Classes are: Hacker, Marine.
Hacker gets a light SMG or a sniper rifle, which can be planted down and fired remotely (which is pretty cool). The hacker gets a pistol, and a hacking tool. Which can be used to speed up capturing of an enemy point, further secure a point you control or in the future, do neat stuff when around computer terminals (I think..), it also is used to control your sniper rifle, if you've set it up remotely, which is pretty cool (you look through the little screen on your hacking tool).
The marine has far deadlier weapons, an automatic rifle with secondary that fires a small RPG. A carbine, very accurate but semi-auto. A grenade launcher, which is pretty decent and quite deadly. An 'ion cannon', fires a powerful, short range lightning stream as primary, secondary charges up and fires a little ion ball looking thingy, it zaps people that it passes near and explodes on impact (think weak version of Quake 2's BFG). The defenders also get the flamethrower (or maybe in place of the ion cannon?), which is a very nasty weapon. The fire is very deadly, and the secondary is to drop napalm, which can be set on fire for a pretty decent amount of time and really prevent movement in tight corridors.
Slight nitpick, Innocent Bystander, the flamethrower is the NGM's version of the grenade launcher.
"Doctors keep their scalpels and other instruments handy, for emergencies. Keep your philosophy ready too—ready to understand heaven and earth. In everything you do, even the smallest thing, remember the chain that links them. Nothing earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by ignoring the earth." M.A.A.A
) The graphics are very good, and the gameplay is quite intriguing as well. It's a bit like Dystopia, but I'd say the spaceflight portion is probably one of the best things I've seen done in a HL2 mod. If you're a fan of BF2 and similar games, you'll want to check this out.
