Thanks for a very honest review. I will play the demo again before I make my decision.

To all the people attacking sb, I may not like him, but why can't you accept his ****ing opinion? The man has a right to warn others that he did not like the game. I am sick and tired of those who lead others blindly into another pointless purchase after another, just for the sake of not rocking the boat.

Lack of immersion is a big issue, and the comparison to IL2 is valid. How many people bought it only because everyone repeated how perfect it was, only to find out later how lifeless it is?

thats the beauty about Opinions, it can be accepted or simply not.
because I've my own opinion which differs from another, or has some similarity.

I skip reviews due the fact above, its his opinion about his experience, I rather try it on my own (DEMO's or Rental) to see how it is and how I experience it, I do have ears for real problems like when the game does not work properly like been proofed in TvT34.

HunterICX

I pretty much agree with the review.

I got more PMs yesterday, of course since it is private I do not identify the sender, but in one of them the sender said this which really is worth to be remembered:

"Great review!:rock: It does not define the game, just your perception of it."

And that is what it is about. Approaches to a game, expectations, demands all differ, and it makes not much sense to start fighting about such differences. Of course I am focussing on my own perception of it - how to do it any different? It'S about MY level of tolerance for things I see as being done not too well, and it is about MY demands of what I want to see in a tanksim in order to call it that. Neal is more forgiving in his reviews than I am, everybody of you who is around long enough to remember the times of Sub Command, will remember the controveries back then. You can bet that his review of SF would be different and probabaly more positive than mine, while a review of TvT done by me probably would be more negative than his is. Our approaches and expectations simply are different. And thus his review will be as much focussed on HIS perception of the game, as has my review focussed on my perception.

Can it ever be any different? The box reads "an epic tank battle simulator". This pretty much set the standard for me to which I compared it all, so to speak. and I found it to be not epic, but small in mission designs, (thank Goid, since evn the reocmmend spec did not aloow the game to be run at reasonable frames at higher than low and low-medium settings), and why I am hesitant to call it a simulator, I have explained in the review, it has much to do with questionable AI, the way the gameplay unfolds, and as far as I am concerned: lacking immersion.

Some may have noted that I have mistaken the classification labels. the depicted Panzerkampfwagen IV of course are not the Tigers as which I called them - the Tiger was version VI, with the Panther being version V. My apologies for that mismatching of names. Since I did not go into system specifics at all, my fault thank God has had no further consequences.

Thorough review, and it is quite clear what you see as shortcomings of the game, and why.

Sometimes I wonder why it seems to be so difficult to make a good simulation that comes also with immersion and atmosphere. Or is it that when simulation falls short in some vital areas like AI, tactics, etc, the immersion goes out of the window quite quickly? It's all about illusion, a good simulation doesn't let you see through to the level of mechanics in most circumstances, and also keep producing believable behavior and results from a wide array of player actions. In less stellar simulations you are presented with an environment which clearly is made of puppets on strings and a puppet master that struggles to make anything good with his material!

Fires up SPB Pro Pe and prepares to be carried away again :cool:

cheers Porphy

Couldn't agree more.

I have played the game for some days now, and im just love it! best tanksim I have played seens panzer Elite. I did bought T34 vs tiger, and that too is a good game, but not so good as steel fury, way to few missions in TvsT. I have not played trow all mission yet and im not playing in full realism yet, and still i love the game. I guess that some great mods will come to this game, i have allready put in the sound mod, only thing that it do miss multiplay, but i allmost allways play offline becourse all dam cheaters online. But is should be fun with a squad of something and usercreated battles.

saw some reviews on the game, comperd the game with steel beast, like compard silent hunter 4 with a nuclar sub. plain stupid.


sorry for my bad english.

This is a new one :o

Well that explains why I'm always throwing tracks. With the T34 I can't get more than 500 yards before the track comes off.

The first time it happened I was in the gunners position, the next thing I know I'm outside the tank and the side of the tank is in front of me rocking. I did an external look around and saw two crew members at the front of the tank making motions as if they're working with lug wrenches. When in this position in the first person view you can really see how detailed the tanks are on the inside because the side of the tank becomes transparent.

Another bug I think they've included is a weak hit event. As in nothing really happens to your view (like maybe shake a little) nor do you hear anything unusual when your tank is hit by higher caliber guns. All you get is a message that your getting hit. The rifle caliber ammunition is clear when it pings against the armor.

Everyone sits around waiting for ages, for a software developer and publisher to do localisations - then it comes out, with none of the existing issues fixed, and with 'new improved errors'.... and the kicker is the solution is to patch back to the original version, which was available right at the start... <sigh>

anyway to reload the ammo within a mission? i seems to run out of ammo if the mission be long. specielt on a singel mission im played a couple of times, they shall take a bridge and im surposed to defend the beach head, Im driving back up to a hill and shoot at the enemy tanks from there, distanst between 800 m to 1300 m, and...hehe..im a rather poor shooter, and my comander dont say the distanst to me. seems not to see that im seeing.

Try estimating the range, setting it for the mg scale and firing short bursts till you have the corrected range.
Transfer this range to the main gun scale, and fire... if you are still missing by a long way then something isn't right ;)

Get closer! ;) even when you hit at 1300m, chnaces are the shot will not do much damage, if any at all. The projectiles were not as powerful as they are today. My grandpa was tanker in Russia, he never talked much about it, but as a young boy I asked him often. Once he said they had rarely fights over 1km especially when the logistic chains were strained and they had to be careful with their ammo. Even shots that hit were wasted often at that distance, since they did not do anything in too many cases, from a logistics point of view. I don't know what kind of tanks he was in, though. I assume it was different with the later Panthers and Tigers.

Save your ammo, get closer.

Patched the game and have found the T key still throws the tracks. I thought it was suppose to rotate the periscope. The manuel isn't translating well.:D I also found that after I patched the game as commander I have less control over the tank than before the patch. The tank has a mind of its own regardless of way points or the F key thingy.

They should allow us to d/l the russian version and apply the western sound files to it. Like how you can get the non-english speaking ai nationalities to speak English in IL2.

I dunno, between BIA HH, COD 5 being more quakish than ever (modern red dot sighting systems on some of the guns as well as uber smg's, and the dogs. They must've placed cloning kennels on the maps.), T34vT, and now this I'm thinking I might just get underway in SH4 again and let the dust settle.
At least I can accomplish two tasks on the sub. Run a partrol and practise my mandolin.

Hi, well they have managed to translate Steel Panzers mod in to English........ hows that for a nice little expansion


just visit here

http://www.lighthouse-interactive.co...hp?f=44&t=1821

:lol: pretty fast work dontcha think :up:

Thanks very much, Tigershuffle. Significant mprovements and additions. Interestingly, I can only enable and run it WITHOUT the unofficial patch 0.1 enabled. Works with Steel Sound 1.1 fix though.

A question for those of you who "get around"...

Which forum has the most activity regarding Steel Fury? I'm talking announcement of mods and support and stuff. I received my boxed version during the week and have been getting right into it, having installed the unofficial patch, sound mod and panzer mod combo (on that it's great to see JSGME being used with SF, however, users should go straight to my webpage and grab the latest version as v1.5 is quite old).

:rotfl: Apart from demonstrating your lack of knowledge of the subject matter, a knowledge which is kinda, well, necessary in order to be seen as knowing about what you write. Anyone with even the most basic understanding of WWII tanks can tell the difference between a PzKpfw IV Ausf F2 and PzKpfw VI Ausf E. I mean, you would never label an M1A1 as a Bradley, would you? And if someone did in a critical review of SBP, would you take it, or them, seriously after that? ;)

Sorry, but I would expect an "official" reviewer representing tanksim.com to know the differences between most well-known tank types.

So, with this in mind, why are you surprised by the criticism you are receiving? I doubt it's just because you are critical of the game. Don't get me wrong, you have made some observations with which I totally concur (I just read your review after spending the better part of the week playing the game and forming my own opinion), but when they're hidden behind basic research errors as well as distracting spelling errors, grammatical errors, and a suggestion that you can't understand why a $50 tank simulator for the masses doesn't equal a $125 tank simulator intended for contemporary military training, you really lose your credibility (for example, comments such as "Is SF really a tank simulation able to rival SBP in the simulation department?". I think you'll find that you may well be one of a very limited few that would even be pondering this odd comparison, as most people understand the different audience that each aims for).

Anyway, that's my opinion. FWIW Steel Fury looks like it will meet my definition of "simulation", even moreso if/when the modders get fully behind it (there's movement in this area already). I like to think of SF in Dec 2008 as SH3 in Mar 2005. Nothing overly spectacular by itself, but with the right mods it has the potential for a title that befits the bold statement on the case (and let's not forget, SH3 called itself "the most impressive, realistic and gripping naval simulator" when it was released, a very optimistic statement that really was not achieved until heavily modded). Anyone who plays SH3 with GWX, or one of the other super mods, will be quite thankful that they were not influenced by a misguided review like the one you're offering for SF.

Oh, another reason why I'd like to know the "best" SF forum to camp at is that after analysing the game files, I am thinking of developing a simple tool that gives you, your tank, your platoon, whatever, an identity. I guess bringing the "personal" aspects which are inherant in Panzer Elite to Steel Fury. Or, if you are familiar with it, something like what SH3Cmdr brings to SH3.

I'd also like the tool to be able to award medals and promotions based on mission performance, but I haven't sussed out where/how that info is stored (surely not just in the profile file?).

So for this to work, I'd need to converse with those that know best what they are talking about, but I'd prefer not to join more than one other forum.

JScones... Besides here at Subsims, there are a few sites that are actively covering Steel Fury and a few of the other tank sim games that are out. But here is a site that you might want to take a look at...

T34 v Tiger Game Forums: http://www.t34vtiger.com/forums/index.php

And a few others...

Lighthouse Interactive/Steel Fury General Discussion: http://www.lighthouse-interactive.co...forum.php?f=44

Tanksim.org.ru: http://translate.google.com/translat...ksim.org.ru%2f

And have to say that the JSGME works great with SF... Thank's for this handy tool.