Impressions...

[leastonh1]

I decided not to post answers to these questions until I'd played for a couple of hours or so...

How does the user interface feel? - Very clean, nice graphics. The units and animations work well and are a nice touch for a turn based game. As I posted elsewhere, I think the game runs slightly too fast. The units move too quickly and the animations cycle looks like the game has been speeded up. I'm not sure if this is my PC/GFX card or something else. I'm running it on an Intel Q6600 quad core cpu, nVidia geForce GTS 250 gfx, 3Gb DDR2 RAM and Win XP.

How does the game look? - Good. The way the squares are depicted makes them integrate well, but without being intrusive. Again, this "feels" more like an rts than turn based, which is a good thing. The mechanics of having squares as opposed to hexes, works surprisingly well.

Did you understand what you were supposed to do? - For the most part, yes. Tooltips could be more common, the double right click to attack takes a bit of working out, especially with air attacks. I think it would help a lot to have some indication of weapons range for units as it's just guesswork now. Also, it's hard to know which is impassible terrain without moving a unit first.

Did you enjoy the scenarios? - I've played both tutorials and two of the western desert scenarios so far. The tutorials were a bit too short, but ok. The two actual game scenarios I've played were good, but far too easy. I'm not sure whether you've gone for an easy start on purpose, but I do think the ai needs to be more aggressive and the enemy units more cohesive. I know the limitations of the width of the map will have had an impact, but the ai convoy was more of a "tank rush" than anything else. I liked the way some vehicles were on the road, with escorts either side, but even after being attacked, they just continued rushing forward.

Were there any bugs? - See my ingame thread.

Did you find the game too easy or too hard? - Much too easy so far and I'm definitely no grognard.

What is your overall impression of the game? - It feels a bit like a Panzer General style game in 3D, but with some hints of an rts. It's more of a casual tactical game than a deep strategy title. I'd like more of a flow from one scenario to the next in the campaign. I know the cartoon intro goes some way to achieving that, but I'm not sure it's quite enough. One thing I like very much is the isometric, cartoon style map shown just before each scenario, detailing the victory points and objectives. Excellent.

Overall, I like the game. It needs more balancing to make it more challenging and some padding to make it the campaign scenarios more cohesive.

Who are your target audience? On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the grognards, I'd say this is more likely to appeal to people at the lower end of the scale. Beginners, and those looking for something of an introduction to wargaming. Is that about right?

Cheers,
Lea

[pipfromslitherine]

The unit movement isn't intended to be 'realistic' - we already have requests for a button to make the movement faster! - and so that is fine. I know what you mean about the exhasts, and I think we might need to make the little puffs less frequent.

Hopefully you'll see the toughness build through the Desert missions - but if you really feel unchallenged, you can jump into the Normandy or (gulp) Bulge missions and see if you still feel it's too easy . Having said that - getting feedback on the Desert missions from everyone is still really useful, but we don't want you to get bored .

Cheers

Pip

[leastonh1]

Hi Pip,

With regards to the speed, thanks for explaining. I wasn't sure whether it was deliberate or just my PC displaying things faster than you intended and something that needed pointing out.

I'll keep playing through the desert campaign to get as much out of it as possible and to try to pick up any issues. I can see myself posting to say it's too hard later then, based on what you said!

Thanks,
Lea