IGN.au SH4 Review

[rodan54]

They definitely slammed the game more than IGN North America. Especially because of the lack of FSAA and the locked screen resolution. The sounds, and sound related bugs, didn't impress them much either. (I agree here, there's definitely room for addition/tweaking, haven't experienced much bugs though)

Now maybe it's just me, but I think their semi-rant about AA or lack-thereof, was a bit over the edge.

For example......"The result is one of the ugliest games we've seen in recent memory. We ran the game on a 22" widescreen LCD, with a native resolution of 1680 x 1050, and the jaggies made it a very unpleasant experience".

Here's the full article.

Full Review

[rascal101]

Wow an honest review, one that clearly is not amused at games developers using players to Beta test a game!

I too am not sure about it being ugly, certainly a pain to look at for any lenght of time, I for one have stopped playing until patch versiopn 2,3 or 4 cos its basically a waste of time, though I should add one day, with the aid of a motley band of international modders this sim will probably out shine SH3 by a mile, for now Stalker and the soon to be releaaed Theatre of War from Battlefront.com will keep me going till the modders and developers fix SH4

Originally Posted by rodan54

They definitely slammed the game more than IGN North America. Especially because of the lack of FSAA and the locked screen resolution. The sounds, and sound related bugs, didn't impress them much either. (I agree here, there's definitely room for addition/tweaking, haven't experienced much bugs though)

Now maybe it's just me, but I think their semi-rant about AA or lack-thereof, was a bit over the edge.

For example......"The result is one of the ugliest games we've seen in recent memory. We ran the game on a 22" widescreen LCD, with a native resolution of 1680 x 1050, and the jaggies made it a very unpleasant experience".

Here's the full article.

Full Review

[Immacolata]

Well sod off then and leave us alone. Can't wait to have you back, maybe with an actual contribution to the community other than whining.

As for the slamming, the score is fair IMO, but their whining about lack of ships, what the? The game is full of ships ! 7.0 isn't a bad score considering the state the game shipped in.

[mookiemookie]

When did things become all about graphics over gameplay? I remember playing The Black Cauldron on an IBM PCjr. You want to talk about jaggies, you'll get no sympathy from me. Nine times out of ten, reviewers don't know their butt from a hole in the ground anyways.

[EDIT: Nothing to see here, move along, move along]

[Skybird]

What a lovely community behavior here.

If I wouldn't have already been stopped from buying for technical arguments before some more months have gone by, than community members mocking somebody because he does not hail a buggy game as the best stuff there is maybe would acchieve the same result - or make me ask myself if I really need a community behaving like that in my life.

Great going guys, feel free to continue with damaging subsim.com's good reputation for tolerant discussions of games, and other stuff.

I'm backing Rascal's comments.

[AVGWarhawk]

Play nice or we take your sub away:rotfl:

In all reality, concerning SH4, I believe it was designed to play with the Post Processing Filter on. I think AA has no bearing with PPF set to on. At least that is how it looks to me. I love the PPF graphics myself. Not having AA was not even remotely close to a game killer as some feel. I set up the PPF and fell in love with it. I loaded SH3 and yes the graphics are clean...a little to clean for me. When I played SH4 w/o PPF.....I agree, it looked bad without AA. When I flipped on PPF....WOW....the game took on a whole new dimension. I never looked back. PPF on all the time.

I'm not worried about the bugs. Patch coming. All in all I score it an 8. That is just me....

[Immacolata]

Not hailing fine by me. But another thread with hyperbolish detraction, too much. Calling the game a waste of time, I mean, come on. Its buggy, yes. I played it for 20 hours now, and have decided to let it rest. Those 20 hours didn't feel like a waste of time at all. I had a great time overall, with bugs. If one is offended by the FSAA issue, well that is fine too.

But a waste of time? Come on. Is that not thumbing ones nose at everyone else?

[SteamWake]

Stunning.... 4 replies and only one really on topic.

Rest are personal bickering.

I personally can not wait to get my hands on the game. FSAA would be nice to have and more resolutions should be avaialable in this day and age but they wont keep me from playing.

I think the most glaring faux paux was to program the game in metric units for a pacific theater :hmm:

The review is kind of all over the map... from

It all looks great, and a million times more atmospheric than the last game… until you spot your first jaggy

to

The result is one of the ugliest games we've seen in recent memory

[mookiemookie]

I'm just frankly tired of everyone using every single thread on any topic whatsoever as an excuse to rail against the game and its shortcomings. Yes we know its got problems. Post it in "likes and dislikes"

That being said, I apologize for my harshness. Post edited.

[XanderF]

PPF on, definitely.

Like the reviewer said, though, 'ships on the horizon are a shifting mess of pixels'. With no FSAA, you just can't make out ANYTHING at any respectable distance.

I just hope we can get FSAA *and* keep the PPF.

As to "graphics don't matter, only gameplay" - then why not play pen-and-paper games like "Harpoon 4"? Oh, wait, graphics DO matter, that's why we play on PCs with 32-bit color monitors instead of black and white; buy expensive video cards and CPU upgrades instead of running off integrated video and budget processors, etc.

As to "The Black Cauldron"...yeah, but that was twenty years ago (yes, twenty). We also played on 4-color monitors at the time at 320x240 resolution if we were LUCKY. Do you really want to play Sh4 at those settings? Why even bring it up? We certainly presume that standards improve over time, why excuse developers when they hold us back? ESPECIALLY when they are holding us back from the industry standard?

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by XanderF

As to "graphics don't matter, only gameplay"

Never said that. While graphics do matter, I personally value solid gameplay over cutting edge graphics. I'd much rather play a deep game with subpar graphics, as I'll have a lot more fun than a game that looks great for 2 or 3 hours and then you're done. That's why when I read reviews that go on and on about how pretty or ugly a game looks, I usually just toss them aside as they're not that helpful to me.

Originally Posted by XanderF

As to "The Black Cauldron"...yeah, but that was twenty years ago (yes, twenty). We also played on 4-color monitors at the time at 320x240 resolution if we were LUCKY. Do you really want to play Sh4 at those settings? Why even bring it up? We certainly presume that standards improve over time, why excuse developers when they hold us back? ESPECIALLY when they are holding us back from the industry standard?

Twenty years....sheeshk...I'm feeling old. Anyways, I'm making the point that I remember when that was the best you were going to get with a game, so I guess my demands and expectations are lower than those of the graphics junkies.

I could never keep them from stealing Hen Wen, dammit...

[RocketDog]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

When did things become all about graphics...

The moment I spent £ 350 on a sophisticated graphics card able to run FSAA at high resolutions.

Cheers,

RD.

[AG124]

On the subject of the lack of ships, I am not quite as disappointed as one might be prima facie. Although at first glance there are some glaring ommissions, we do have to realize that it takes time to build these models, and the dev team had a limited amount of time to do it (while building the rest of the game, or at least the new parts of it). I'll break my opinion down a bit by ship type:

(BTW - I just realized that they were talking about traffic, and not the roster. Since I've already posted, I'll leave it here anyway as I feel the roster has been under-rated by others).

Battleships: Out of the 5 commissioned types of IJN BBs, we got 4 (plus the CVB variant of the Ise class, for a total of 5). Only the Nagato class has been omitted. This seems to be acceptable to me, considering the beforementioned limits. On the US side, we got three classes; I am fairly satisfied with this, although I would have liked the Tennessee class (modernised variant) either with or in place of the New Mexico class. I am more concerned with Japanese shipping than US shipping, as the Japanese ships are our prey.

Carriers: This is the only area where I really am disappointed, especially on the US side. On the Japanese side, we do get the essential Shokaku class, Taiho, and the Taiyo class CVE. The Akitsu and Chitose classes are nice additions as well, especially the Chitose class. However, if I were going to choose one of the four 'Midway' carriers, I would have chosen the Akagi over the Hiryu. Also, the absence of the Zuiho class, Junyo class, the Shinano, and to a certain extent the Unryu classe seems like too noticeable a gap. I could live without the Hosho, Ryujo, Ryuho, the Chitose class after conversion, whatever two Midway carriers that were chosen for ommission over two more (2/4 would be enough - presumably Akagi and Hiryu over Kaga and Soryu), or all other CVEs. On the US side, things are really bad, with only the Wasp representing all US fleet carriers (and the two CVE's from SHIII). The US really needed the Yorktown and Essex classes, at the very least.

Heavy Cruisers: Again the selection here is not bad - from the IJN, we get the Furutaka class (representative of old Japanese CAs), the Mogami class (upgraded version only), the essential Takao class, and even the upgraded Maya (which I regard as a bonus, rather than a waste of resources). The Myoko or Tone class would have been nice too, but I am satisifed with this (I am not concerned about the Aoba class though). On the US side, we got the Baltimore and Northampton classes, which is good, but the inclusion of the New Orleans still feels necessary to me.

Light Cruisers: On the Japanese side, the Kuma, Naka, and Agano classes constitute a fair inclusion, although it would have been good to have had the Yubari, if there had been time. The Tenryu class, Katori class, and Oyodo can be omitted, and the Nagaro class was very similar to the Kuma class anyway. On the US side, the Atlanta class feels like a glaring ommission, but the Omaha, Cleveland, and Brooklyn classes are alright.

Destroyers: We get a good selection of Japanese DDs, and although one more older class of US DDs might have been alright, I'm not concerned about those for some reason.

Escorts: Although I am satisfied with the US selection, I would have liked to have seen a Japanese Kaibokan (either a D, or preferably a C type). Maybe a Matsu or Tachibana class frigate as well.

Merchants: I am not going to go through each merchant class, because I am pretty much satisfied with all of them - more so than with any other Subsim merchant selection ever before. We even get random tonnages for the first time since AoD. I would have liked to have seen a Whale Factory, but didn't and don't really expect such a ship to be included. However, I did expect a 906 GRT Juyusen class Coastal Tanker, which were very common and were included in SHI (and in AoD and DftD for some reason). A Sea Truck might have been a good addition to. Overall, happy with this though.

Plus, we get a few Commonwealth vessels, plus various US merchants and some Japanese auxiliaries. No Dutch ships though - a DD or CL might have helped.

Overall though, I think we got a pretty good selection, with the excpetion of carriers. Plus, of course, there are always modders...

[Onkel Neal]

The reviwer mentioned not having any fuel consumption, he must have been playing with the Unlimited Fuel option. Possibly he had it off in the Main Menu Options screen, but when he started a career, selected the difficulty option there that disabled it...and did not know that you can go into the HQ office and fine tune the realism options.... it is confusing. If I had designed the career into setup, I would have taken the player to the Realism options screen at the beginning of the career.

As for the jaggies, I guess it depends on your monitor size, I cannot find anything significant to complain about.Some of the guys I talk to with big monitors say it looks terrible, some say "what? it looks great". Games Xtreme loved the game and said the bugs were not a big factor, the gameplay carried it.

[XanderF]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

Never said that. While graphics do matter, I personally value solid gameplay over cutting edge graphics. I'd much rather play a deep game with subpar graphics, as I'll have a lot more fun than a game that looks great for 2 or 3 hours and then you're done. That's why when I read reviews that go on and on about how pretty or ugly a game looks, I usually just toss them aside as they're not that helpful to me.

Yes, but that's not what is happening, here. I mean, some games (Doom 3, Unreal Tournament, etc) are not so much 'games' as 'technology showcases'. The reviewers do go on and on about the graphics rather than the game because that's the point of those titles. The game is tacked on to show how to use the engine, but it's licenses of the engine that the developers are REALLY hoping to sell. That there is a game they can make money off at the same time is just a bonus. For THOSE titles.

This isn't one of those. So, yes, sometimes reviews go on and on about graphics because that is the POINT of it. Most the time, they just comment on how the graphics contribute or detract from the title. Which is what they were doing here. (IE., a version of game with serviceable graphics for the theme, game type, and video card generation is baseline score 'x' and the graphics can '+y' or '-y' to that score. All they are saying is that, for Sh4, the graphics are a '-y' not a '+y')

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

Twenty years....sheeshk...I'm feeling old. Anyways, I'm making the point that I remember when that was the best you were going to get with a game, so I guess my demands and expectations are lower than those of the graphics junkies.

I could never keep them from stealing Hen Wen, dammit...

I didn't think you COULD? Wasn't that part of the story??

Originally Posted by AG124

On the subject of the lack of ships, I am not quite as disappointed as one might be prima facie. Although at first glance there are some glaring ommissions, we do have to realize that it takes time to build these models, and the dev team had a limited amount of time to do it (while building the rest of the game, or at least the new parts of it). I'll break my opinion down a bit by ship type:
....
Overall though, I think we got a pretty good selection, with the excpetion of carriers. Plus, of course, there are always modders...

Honestly, I'm probably more jaded to "ship selection" than you. 'Pacific Fighters' shipped with ONE actual cruisers. Indianapolis. That's IT. NO Japanese cruisers AT ALL. Oh, and the 'battleships' for each side? Just the King George V model with different flags for US or Japan. ROFL. Yes, it's a flight sim, and Sh4 is a naval sim, but the ship variety is almost intoxicating compared to PF!