gutted
02-28-10, 04:47 PM
Yeah yeah, i said i wasn't going to buy it because of the DRM crap, but i now have my copy.
Was at best buy this morning for something else, and decided to walk through games section and saw it. Note: Anyone in the New Orleans area, Best Buy in Metairie has 3 copies left. I mulled over it for a bit, and decided what the hell.. i had nothing important planned today anyway, so i decided to get it now.. and "fix" the always online thing on a later date.
So.. my first impressions? Un-impressed. I was hoping for a more immersive experience.. but i'm actually less immersed. So, instead of posting all the things i like.. i'll just stick to the things i dislike.
1. The novelty of walking around the ship and talking to the asshats onboard wore off in the first few minutes. Going up and down ladders will aggrevate you at times, because sometimes he wont go up them. I also wish it would remember that i was in look mode when entering/exiting stations.
2. The orange glow around people and objects like the hydrophone, UZO, persiscope is a massive immersion killer, and is a huge eye-sore.
3. Deck Gun:
There's no scope view (atleast i couldn't find it). The controls say to use the mouse wheel to zoom, but while sitting at the station you can only zoom out to see your entire ship. Zooming in does nothing. In easy targetting you get a green projectile path, while In realistic targetting you get nothing. Brilliant :down:
[EDIT]
Figured it out, there's a button next to the ammo selector at the top left corner of the screen to switch to the gun scope. The manual actually says to use the TAB key to switch to the scope, but that's a actually hotkey for something else. Go figure.
4. Flack Gun:
You can actually zoom in and use it. But... the ammo left indicator is near the middle of the screen. Which means when you look up.. the ammo bar will cover up your sight. Yeah i know, its pretty stupid.
5. Periscope View:
Sucks. Too much dead space. The recognition pages are too small. There's a ridiculous Lock, Unlock button hovering around inside the periscope view underneath ships. And when the recognition manual pages are shown, that button moves up and obscures the target you are trying to match in the pictures.
The Bearing indicator, is hard to read, and is missing tick marks for accurate scope positioning.
There's no Sub Heading indicator anywhere in UI HUD from what i can tell either.
The popup map is cool idea i guess (still not sold on it). I found it rather annoying to be honest. I dont like the fact that if i have the popup map closed, and i switch to the normal map via the 'm' key.. when i come back by hitting M again, the popup map is open now.
5. Manual Targetting:
Sucks. There's no TDC controls, no Dials, no nothing. Just a menu driven interface. Complete immersion killer for me. Instead of rotating a knob to set speed, i have to keep ticking a standard windows left right arrow control over and over again.... but, only AFTER navigating through the conversation options to reach it. Idiocy!
Salvo controls seem to be 1 torpedo, or all torpedos. The torpedo man talking every time you change tubes is annoying as hell. I tried to open and flood Tubes 1-3 and was bombarded by a wall of voice respsonses. I almost pounded my headphones when i heard that. You get the same crap when plotting out a course on the map.. every waypoint you add you hear a response from the nav officer calling out bearings. After the 5th waypoint you want to strangle him.
6. Hydrophone:
Can't use the mouse to move the pointer around like in SH3 (and somtimes SH4 depending on Sub). Have to use the Home/End keys. Couldn't figure out how to use the volume knob, despite clicking on it.
7. Stability
So far it's managed to freeze my machine on the 3 launches i tried. Everything is fine, and then sooner or later the screen freezes and i get screeching out of the speakers.
I'm trying to stay positive, but im having a hard time. Will keep plugging away at it, but i'm left feeling that it's going to take alot of modding to make this a worthy successor in my eyes.
Will post more things as i find them.
Was at best buy this morning for something else, and decided to walk through games section and saw it. Note: Anyone in the New Orleans area, Best Buy in Metairie has 3 copies left. I mulled over it for a bit, and decided what the hell.. i had nothing important planned today anyway, so i decided to get it now.. and "fix" the always online thing on a later date.
So.. my first impressions? Un-impressed. I was hoping for a more immersive experience.. but i'm actually less immersed. So, instead of posting all the things i like.. i'll just stick to the things i dislike.
1. The novelty of walking around the ship and talking to the asshats onboard wore off in the first few minutes. Going up and down ladders will aggrevate you at times, because sometimes he wont go up them. I also wish it would remember that i was in look mode when entering/exiting stations.
2. The orange glow around people and objects like the hydrophone, UZO, persiscope is a massive immersion killer, and is a huge eye-sore.
3. Deck Gun:
There's no scope view (atleast i couldn't find it). The controls say to use the mouse wheel to zoom, but while sitting at the station you can only zoom out to see your entire ship. Zooming in does nothing. In easy targetting you get a green projectile path, while In realistic targetting you get nothing. Brilliant :down:
[EDIT]
Figured it out, there's a button next to the ammo selector at the top left corner of the screen to switch to the gun scope. The manual actually says to use the TAB key to switch to the scope, but that's a actually hotkey for something else. Go figure.
4. Flack Gun:
You can actually zoom in and use it. But... the ammo left indicator is near the middle of the screen. Which means when you look up.. the ammo bar will cover up your sight. Yeah i know, its pretty stupid.
5. Periscope View:
Sucks. Too much dead space. The recognition pages are too small. There's a ridiculous Lock, Unlock button hovering around inside the periscope view underneath ships. And when the recognition manual pages are shown, that button moves up and obscures the target you are trying to match in the pictures.
The Bearing indicator, is hard to read, and is missing tick marks for accurate scope positioning.
There's no Sub Heading indicator anywhere in UI HUD from what i can tell either.
The popup map is cool idea i guess (still not sold on it). I found it rather annoying to be honest. I dont like the fact that if i have the popup map closed, and i switch to the normal map via the 'm' key.. when i come back by hitting M again, the popup map is open now.
5. Manual Targetting:
Sucks. There's no TDC controls, no Dials, no nothing. Just a menu driven interface. Complete immersion killer for me. Instead of rotating a knob to set speed, i have to keep ticking a standard windows left right arrow control over and over again.... but, only AFTER navigating through the conversation options to reach it. Idiocy!
Salvo controls seem to be 1 torpedo, or all torpedos. The torpedo man talking every time you change tubes is annoying as hell. I tried to open and flood Tubes 1-3 and was bombarded by a wall of voice respsonses. I almost pounded my headphones when i heard that. You get the same crap when plotting out a course on the map.. every waypoint you add you hear a response from the nav officer calling out bearings. After the 5th waypoint you want to strangle him.
6. Hydrophone:
Can't use the mouse to move the pointer around like in SH3 (and somtimes SH4 depending on Sub). Have to use the Home/End keys. Couldn't figure out how to use the volume knob, despite clicking on it.
7. Stability
So far it's managed to freeze my machine on the 3 launches i tried. Everything is fine, and then sooner or later the screen freezes and i get screeching out of the speakers.
I'm trying to stay positive, but im having a hard time. Will keep plugging away at it, but i'm left feeling that it's going to take alot of modding to make this a worthy successor in my eyes.
Will post more things as i find them.