First Impressions

[buster0083]

G'day guys,

My initial impressions are below, mostly in note form. I'll provide a more detailed overview of my experience down the track; please let me know how I can improve my feedback should you need to.

Regards

Initial Impressions

1st five seconds:
Clean UI, loads fast, skippable intro (which is becoming less common these days). Skipping the intro with the Enter key caused a crash to desktop

1st sixty seconds:
Play button for campaign looks a little incongruous with the style of the rest of the UI, would also more naturally appear on the right hand side of the panel in my opinion.

1st five minutes:
Tutorial briefings are clear, but little guidance for players who didn't play previous Generals titles. Expected animation for unit moves (I appreciate it is a beta). Purchase units buttons shows code in the description. Map "tears" when scrolled. Looks clean and pretty. Terrain and units nice enough. "Feels" like previous games, and indeed feels right.

1st fifteen minutes:
Simple to get into a campaign and begin. Nice touch already naming units - I used to do that myself. Not clear how to close deployment screen, further, annoying to have to purchase a unit, deploy it, then purchase another - would be good to be able to deploy several purchased units in one hit. Not clear if a unit has attacked once already in a turn - an icon, etc may help.

1st hour:
Christ... it's already been an hour! Immersive, game flows well, it's easy to follow action. Crosshairs over targets in range is an excellent touch. No KIA indication - units just disappear.

Usability and UI:
Very intuitive in terms of control, but I've owned all previous General titles and am used to them - I can't speak for new players. Unit stats button not immediately clear in location. Mouse control interface works well. Larger window for unit stats would be nice.

Performance:
Loads fast, runs fine. On one occasion enemy turn seemed to hang for an excessive amount of time - seemed to be at the end of the turn, turn six, on the Norway map, after all units seemed to have moved. Hung for approx two minutes, then resumed with no further problems. Only other fault was the above mentioned CTD when Enter is used to skip the intro.