sys spec:
256mb 1ghz Athlon
64mb Guillemot Prophet II GTS
22" iiyama monitor
MS FFB2 stick (with lack of throttle control *GRRRRR*)

*takes a deep breath*
I loved TFX, and then EF2000 and then tactcom and then F22 and then the red sea operations and THEN TAW (phew)

... so since TAW came out I've waited with bated breath and a few high resolution screen shots until yesterday. I bought Eurofighter Typhoon... I was at first VERY suprised to see that the OPTIMAL spec (there are three specs on the box) is a 500mhz PIII... I immediatly thought, ok whats missing? so I installed the game and then went to the gfx setup... wow (sarcastic stance) a whole 1024 resolution and I remembered why I hated TAW so much a little while ago over 800*600... so with that little disapointment down I watched the amazing intro/in game graphics and thought to myself "the jaggys arent too bad..."

Remember the old console games that had few options and at the most it was '1 player' or '2 player' ? thats what ET is... Peacetime operations or wartime... 1 4 day wartime campain that is rigged with fixed 'suprises'. I read in the review here that ET wasnt a heavy sim but I HONESTLY keep expecting 'Insert 1 coin to continue' to display when I fly one of my buddies into the dirt and watch from a smart cam as the plane disintergrates. Infact no, sorry I'm being misleading here.. you dont actually see them hit the dirt, it just changes back to your remaining men. There are NO options... you either play it their way or no way.

There arent even any 'training' options that were in TAW for example... you cant wake up one morning and decide your going to go take out some tanks with a few mavericks... in this game its on day x time x... I never really got into the custom combat of TAW until well after the game had died of old age.. it still amused me in EF2000 to take out the same dam over and over again at night or during the day etc etc... I honestly expected D.I.D to do what most software publishers do... learn from their previous games.

I could let someone that hated flight sims play Ef2000 and by the end of a few runs I'm sure I could convince them otherwise... all that waiting watching the same low res blocky stupid people in the mess hall of ET is just 'plane' tedious... you cant even taxi yourself out of the hanger which has been in EVERY D.I.D game since Ef2000...

I am one of those people that will end up backing this game up because D.I.D helped to desgin it... not because of the infinitve combinations of gameplay... because their just arent any!

IMHO, I always thought D.I.D were the founders of real, good, dynamic game play in
a flight sim and I'm VERY disapointed that its rigged like some pathetic re-write of phantasmagoria... if I honestly wanted a game that so far played like this I'd of bought fricking incomming 2 or even better a console '.'

If it wasnt for the fact I was forcing the stick into the ground when I landed I might have still succeeded landing at a 30 degree dive... I bounced and scrapped quite happily for a while before returing to the HQ automatically... I take it I died then? *lol*

What is vastly improved about ET:
The graphics are superbly detailed... apart from watching the ragged edges of the ragged mountains

'bitching betty' has been reduced to a slightly less annoying indication of ground collision

and errr.... did I mention the graphics?

Eurofighter typhoon is very much a druggies Ef2000 (its not even worth 'poor man's'status)

I really do love d.i.d ... with a passion and respect that I've never had over any other series of games or company but when I heard the D.I.D team was still mostly intact after the ocean buy out I had hoped that they werent just talking about the object modellers.....

If I really wanted to be critical about this game I'd add that the graphics arent that great.... I mean its iceland but I'm sure its a hell of a lot less barren than they make it out. No forrests? even Razorworks managed to put in some flat bitmaps around large green objects that made them look kinda like woods... even if they had no perception of volume whats so ever.

I dont think I'm asking too much for a game to be almost as good as Ef2000... I dont really think F22 or TAW was but I do expect one to be of around the same standard... not something that sits of the same shelf as strike commander.

I've heard rumours here of an addon maybe similar to Tactcom. That addon has the potential to make this game the best ever 'flight sim' in the world.... and maybe thats what Rage are planning on doing, unfortunatly in the real world a game has to be worth making an addon for in the first place, if it isnt and it doesnt sell as expected then dont hold your breath, not for another 3 years.

In my opinion its worth owning ET simply because its another flight sim 'by' D.I.D but I wonder as I sit here chewing my fizzy sour mix if this title was worth the D.I.D brand in the first place.

There are some good things in this game.. not just the graphics, but sadly it appears like they are just toned down versions of what was already there in EF2000.. I didn't expect much new, so I hardly doubt I was creating an anti climax. This isn't a hardcore flightsim... I could be childish and say its just plainly a sh*tesim.

The time-wait scenes are too boring and long for it to be an arcade game.. but starting straight from the runway and being unable to jump straight into any kind of training when where and how you want it is just stupid... can anyone really say they hated landing the F22 with hydrolics failures?... ut oh... I'm almost considering to start talking about how badly drawn and blocky the inside cockpit of ET is..... I'd better stop now *g*

please.... after so much support for DiD I'd really love to be able to hold this game high with some amount of respect if not because its a good game but why they made it this way.... if anyone can give me their opinions with reasons .. then my ears are open IF this isnt a game.. 'its an experience' that what kind of experience is it meant to be? also.... do the developers expect the game to still be played after it has been completed on the 3 difficulty settings?

take care,

Ian.


[This message has been edited by Vaider-Raider (edited 05-19-2001).]

Note: after playing about with FSAA I've found that I can get non jaggy graphics 4x4 FSAA with minimal system degregation.... I guess I'm just lucky to have a Gforce card.... screw the higher resolutions they'll say, we'll just depend on everyone buying a Gforce 3 with hardware AA *lol* hmmmmmmmm
P.S it kinda makes TAW more playable too *GGG*

[This message has been edited by Vaider-Raider (edited 05-19-2001).]

I agree with you i would have preferred an old Ef200o with new graphic to this game for child, my and yours only hope is that Rage will in near future develop a hardcore version of Typhoon with major realism options, major control in the campaign, mission editor, training mission, air refuelling, new and greater war sceneries, real Typhoon avionics and flight model: a new Typhoon i hope this is possible it should be great too great for us common hardcore Typhoon lovers!

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Vincent "Virus" Di Micco

Don't look for it, Vince.

Viscerally, I react to your all's comments similarly. After buying the game and playing it, I'm convinced that DiD could have smacked it dead over the center-field fence with just a little more attention to detail. Some of the early design decisions were straight-up fudges, and that's where the game shows its warts.

I'd like to see them take this game and use the campaign part of it, then add in the F-22 as it is in TAW, then make the Eurofighter similarly flyable, and add back TAW's custom mission feature. Put the scenario back in Africa-that's awesome for those little hot-spot conflicts that dominate the news these days. I'd trade TAW's multi-campaign style for the EBC broadcasts in Typhoon any day. Beter yet-let the user define her own starting parameters!

Concentrate on detail-like returning ALARM to its former two-mode operation. Like pulling landing gear up automatically at 300 knots. The HUD in Typhoon, at high difficulty levels, is crying out for a cockpit to go with it. The popup MFDs drive me insane. Concentrate on smart munitions; use the EF for multirole and leave the -22 as it's designed with "not a pound for air to ground."

Better yet: Get with Dassault and do a real, F/A-18 quality survey sim-base it on the Rafale M. The animated ocean in Typhoon is SCREAMING for carrier ops. Add Typhoon's campaign system to JF/A-18-level systems detail, a mission editor and an aircraft no one's even mentioned since ATF-Gold and you'll have a classic that'll set the standard for years to come-a game they'll talk about in the same breath with Falcon 3 and EF-2000. U.S. buyers WILL buy a Rafale sim. Especially if it's carrier-borne. They'll come out of the woodwork.

I can dream, right?

Miao, Cat

Cat,

Eurofighter fires X2 2 million each Storm Shadow and after about 60 is 'done for the war'.

F-22 drops X2 Diamond Back JDAM, *faster* at radius-X equivalency, flies home and reloads ad infinitum.

F-22 is a superb A2G machine, people just don't know it because they think in 'A-10' terms.

Given a choice, I would say that Rafale is dead so long as it is based on two Marine Carriers (neither of which run) and French Politics.

Pick a 'post modern' world in which JSF runs with Pegasus off of small-STOVL carriers and you are controlling perhaps 10-20 aircraft and 40-60 'pylons' per mission.

That's GWB's choice and mine because it gives me every navy that now operates the Harrier and it allows me to move on into some more interesting (NBDB) new platforms.

ATF's JSF wasn't even close and EIDOS, whatever you think of 'close' was not STOVL.


KP


LINKS-
http://www.janes.com/aerospace/military/news/jdw/jdw010307_3_n.shtml

http://www.janes.com/aerospace/military/news/idr/idr010504_1_n.shtml

I think that should read "F-22 MAY BE a superb A2G machine...

It's probably a bit early to be judging a platform that has had no real combat trials. Seems to me there might be a lot of things to go wrong with such an advanced aircraft..we could find that the old A-10 has a higher mission availability than the F-22 when it eventually hits service...

Who knows..

BeachAV8R


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http://home.carolina.rr.com/beachav8r/

Kurt,

The JSF thing would rock too; haven't nations other than the U.S. committed to the JSF programme? I read someplace that the Navy and Marines plan to acquire them. And the Royal Navy. "Jeep" carriers like HMS Invincible would be tres cool to fly off of in-game.

I hadn't thought of the JDAM and the F-22. You're right-that'd be a natural combination, wouldn't it. Especially if one could manually retarget like in Jane's F/A-18. That game makes the JDAM worthy. If it only had EFT's campaign...set in the desert...it'd be my dream sim.

Miao, Cat