I ain't buying or doing that... I played the orginal, it was great for the day... I now swear by SB Pro PE for any and all modern day armor simulation.
Looks worse than the graphics. There's video from Wild Bill Steely's channel of it running- the tanks move around like racecars uphill, it's frenetic action shots flying all over the places. The game itself is advertised as a 'simulation action game,' it looks not so good either way.
And they claim it's coming to consoles. It doesn't look good enough for that, it doesn't look it would satisfy simulation fans, either. That said, I'm going to check it out. Gentlemen. I love tanks.
I ain't buying or doing that... I played the orginal, it was great for the day... I now swear by SB Pro PE for any and all modern day armor simulation.
Well, this is set in WW2, this isn't modern. Still, it doesn't look like WW2 combat, either. It doesn't look like it fits in any period.
M4 Tank Platoon promises to become the standard in World War II tank games with explosive gameplay, unparalleled realism, and beautifully rendered, historically accurate terrains
God I hope not.
Battlefronts newer Combat Mission Normandy is a better M4 tank simulation than this thing is.And that is saying alot since it is not even a tank sim.
Yikes no make that a double wtf LOL. This is quite a letdown I was hoping this to be a reboot of a classic in new WW2 trappings or an amazing PE2 like M4 prodigy and what comes is something that looks so dated; interface, gameplay and graphic wise.
Looking at the screenshots I'd swear I was back in 2003...or EARLIER.
Here we are in the land of DX 11 with PC hardware that's AT LEAST 5 times more powerful than then, and this cr4p gets introduced? Is this a joke?
We have simulations like Rise of Flight that have PIECES falling off and fluttering down to the ground and I see an explosion modeled in polygons like THAT?
Gimme a break. "Wild Bill" Stealy or not, I would rather play the original M1 Tank Platoon 2 ( which I still have on the shelf ) in all it's glory, on my old Pentium 4 2.8 ghz with 512mb RAM running Win 98 and sporting a 3dFx Voodoo3 3000 PCI card...or even on my current rig using a Glide wrapper...than pay for this junk. Granted, you can play it for free in offline mode, but see my second sentence...
okay, everyone is complaining about graphics,but what is important in a sim like this is ballistic and dmg model. i want to see reports on that.
Looking at the videos all tanks go up in a massive explosion with one hit, which isn't realistic and the movement speed is just a joke. It's not a simulation.
And this is a definition of a fail. This "wild bill' has no honor and should be banned from anything computer related. From what I heard he single handedly killed Air Warrior and than War Birds....
I just got off the phone with Panzer Commander, it wants its graphics engine back!
Seriously, Steel Armor: Blaze of War looks so much better for a new armor sim despite the ghey name.
Panzer Commander had much better graphics than that.
Wow. It really does. And that game was out during the Clinton administration. Most people hadn't heard of Y2K. The iPod didn't exist. I was running a 233MHZ w/32mb RAM, 8MB video card(!)
okay, everyone is complaining about graphics,but what is important in a sim like this is ballistic and dmg model. i want to see reports on that.
When I was young, my mother was always trying to set me up with the daughters of her friends. Invariably, when I asked Mom what the girl looked like, she'd answer something like, "Apparently she's just the sweetest girl you ever met. They say she's got a wonderful personality!"
What she left unsaid was that the girl looked like a Bull Mastiff wearing a wig and a dress. Thankfully, even at that young age, I was enough of a skeptic about trusting other members of the human race so I never fell into one of Mom's girl traps. And later opportunities to view the young lady in question always made me glad I'd slipped the noose.
Just as all the personality in the world could not make me interested in a girl who could have scared a buzzard of an abattoir fence from fifty paces with a single glance, neither can all the ballistic and damage modeling in the world make me interested in a tank sim that looks like this.
okay, everyone is complaining about graphics,but what is important in a sim like this is ballistic and dmg model. i want to see reports on that.
You're right to an extent, but given today's computing power there's just no need to make a game with 10-year-old graphics. It's like making a game with only MIDI sound effects, or one that won't run on Vista or W7.
okay, everyone is complaining about graphics,but what is important in a sim like this is ballistic and dmg model. i want to see reports on that.
Even if those things are reasonable, the representation of everything else looks bad. Movement phases look like a game of Doom on tracks, but these tanks are scooting around as if they were motorcycles.
The graphics are simply re-used from their online flight sim arena, probably reasonable from the vantage point of an aircraft at high altitude, but a throwback to the late 90's for an armor sim.
Look at this video- this looks like tactics don't so much matter, it looks more like an arcade style free for all (they even bill it as 'fast action combat'):
Look at these tanks travelling uphill like a 70 degree slope with no loss of speed. Look at them unencumbered by loading cycles, popping off rounds left and right on the move. From the gameplay they're showing, it seems like 'tactics' means simply charging forward into gunfire and shoot, shoot, shoot.
Why would Wild Bill Stealey attach his name to something like this? Does he have nothing else to do? Does he need the money? One has to wonder if this marquee publicity shot here was what they intended for the game to look like:
Wild Bill Stealey is someone who can put together design teams, but himself isn't really a developer. He takes other people's work and brings them to market. In this case, it happens to be a recycled game engine adapted for ground operations. They realized they can't really design an armor sim from the ground up, so they took this Warbirds engine and said, 'well, we'll call it an action simulation game.' I don't see how they can possibly believe this is going to go anywhere on consoles. My Android phone has better looking apps I could download. Someone originally wanted to call it the definitive simulation of 'armored land combat' and it de-evolved from that into 'fast action simulation game.' You can tell they realized they were in over their heads.
okay, everyone is complaining about graphics,but what is important in a sim like this is ballistic and dmg model. i want to see reports on that.
You're right to an extent, but given today's computing power there's just no need to make a game with 10-year-old graphics. It's like making a game with only MIDI sound effects, or one that won't run on Vista or W7.
Besides, there's more than just ballistics and damage modelling- tanks aren't forts which just sit there (ok, some armies have used and abused them this way, the Iraqis, the French in WW2), but an armor simulation these days need to model more than the individual gunner's position. Tank operations don't necessarily resolve combat by shooting- maneuver warfare closes the gap between attrition warfare and maneuver warfare. The idea is that an enemy could be defeated before the first shots by moving into position while the enemy is out of position. Think of naval combat in World War 2. Once the right elements line up, that is, the battleships and heavy cruisers maneuver into position to line up more guns and deliver a broadside against an enemy, have already pretty much overdetermined what is going to happen.
I saw why not- I prefer Cold War scenarios, but there were few WW2 games that were done well. This is due largely because, most that came out were when there wasn't really alot of power available to personal computers to generate landscapes that could pass off reasonably well enough to look like real life- they always looked flat, barren, artificial. It's only recently that hardware is catching up to render terrain from the eye level that looks like something you'd recognize.
The classics that everyone refers to: Panzer Commander- sucked all around. Panzer Elite- looked like a Monet or impressionist school painting. Cheap ballistics. Haven't played the newest crop from the Russian developers, though.
I saw why not- I prefer Cold War scenarios, but there were few WW2 games that were done well. This is due largely because, most that came out were when there wasn't really alot of power available to personal computers to generate landscapes that could pass off reasonably well enough to look like real life- they always looked flat, barren, artificial. It's only recently that hardware is catching up to render terrain from the eye level that looks like something you'd recognize.
The classics that everyone refers to: Panzer Commander- sucked all around. Panzer Elite- looked like a Monet or impressionist school painting. Cheap ballistics. Haven't played the newest crop from the Russian developers, though.
The Russians and Eastern Europeans are the go-to guys for WW2 armor sims as far as i'm concerned, they have the historical interest and and a demanding local market to see that it gets done right. Anyways besides some also ancient titles like Steel Thunder, the M1 Tank Platoons, Team Yankee, what have we had for Cold War armor sims aside from maybe some Steel Beasts scenarios?
The Russians and Eastern Europeans are the go-to guys for WW2 armor sims as far as i'm concerned, they have the historical interest and and a demanding local market to see that it gets done right. Anyways besides some also ancient titles like Steel Thunder, the M1 Tank Platoons, Team Yankee, what have we had for Cold War armor sims aside from maybe some Steel Beasts scenarios?
There's not much there in terms of armor simulations at all- but Steel Beasts has versions of T-55, T-62, T-72, M60A3, M1A1, Leopard I, Centurion is coming soon, you have alot of ingredients there for: Arab-Israeli wars, classic WP vs. NATO, good represenation there for historical conflicts. I'll even plug a couple of skins I've done recently:
okay, everyone is complaining about graphics,but what is important in a sim like this is ballistic and dmg model. i want to see reports on that.
When I was young, my mother was always trying to set me up with the daughters of her friends. Invariably, when I asked Mom what the girl looked like, she'd answer something like, "Apparently she's just the sweetest girl you ever met. They say she's got a wonderful personality!"
What she left unsaid was that the girl looked like a Bull Mastiff wearing a wig and a dress. Thankfully, even at that young age, I was enough of a skeptic about trusting other members of the human race so I never fell into one of Mom's girl traps. And later opportunities to view the young lady in question always made me glad I'd slipped the noose.
Just as all the personality in the world could not make me interested in a girl who could have scared a buzzard of an abattoir fence from fifty paces with a single glance, neither can all the ballistic and damage modeling in the world make me interested in a tank sim that looks like this.
Cheers!
Rick...
I was lucky. My grandmother did that to me and she had damn good taste in women.
The Russians and Eastern Europeans are the go-to guys for WW2 armor sims as far as i'm concerned, they have the historical interest and and a demanding local market to see that it gets done right. Anyways besides some also ancient titles like Steel Thunder, the M1 Tank Platoons, Team Yankee, what have we had for Cold War armor sims aside from maybe some Steel Beasts scenarios?
There's not much there in terms of armor simulations at all- but Steel Beasts has versions of T-55, T-62, T-72, M60A3, M1A1, Leopard I, Centurion is coming soon, you have alot of ingredients there for: Arab-Israeli wars, classic WP vs. NATO, good represenation there for historical conflicts. I'll even plug a couple of skins I've done recently:
M60A3
Guards T-72
Are those tanks crewable? Especially the 60, I have a fond place in my heart for that tank.
I need a job. So if you're willing to pay me $300 an hour, health care (especially mental health care) and 6.8 days off a week, I should be able wrap up a review sometime in June.
