Strike Commander? Is it worth it?
Brad Lascelle
experiencing problem after problem, and then find out that the game
doesn't even scale good or function properly. Now, I've been looking
forward to this game for quite a while now, even though I only have
a 386 SX, and I'm beginning to think that maybe I shouldn't waste my
money on the game. So is this game really worth the money and the
hard drive space it will chew up? Maybe I should get Ultima VII Part
2 instead or just wait for Eye of the Beholder III? Recommendations?
Jude M. Greer
If you want to know what I think, DO NOT GET IT!!! I got it this weekend,
and I have a 486-33 Local Bus and at full detail, it SUCKS!!! I'm taking it
back Monday.
To be more specific, the frame rate is BAAAD. Especially when you're flying
around a city. Everything is so incredibly jerky that its maddening to try
to fly the plane when the smallest sidewards motion on the stick produces
~30 degree bank. This makes it impossible to bomb anything on the ground,
and even dogfighting is terrible, and I found it to be the most enjoyable
part of the whole game.
Another thing that I really hate about this game is the ground. Either with
or without Gourad shading, the ground looks like shit. With it on, it looks
like you're flying over mush, and with it off, the entire ground is composed
of little triangles of color. I could get NO sense of depth whatsoever, and
even though this is admittedly very hard to do with a 2-D screen, I've seen
much better illusion of depth in other flight-sims.
Still another thing about the game I hate is the terrain. I just don't see
why the designers felt it was necessary to put in all that junk like cities
and tree clumps when it looks like complete crap anyway. The one thing I'll
give this game is that the objects are VERY nicely done. However, this does
not justify spending $65-$70 for the damn thing. At the beginning, you can
click on a button labeled "View Objects," and you can see all the different
planes and objects rotating smoothly. This is pretty impressive, and it may
have been a good game had the designers limited it to just the impressive
planes, and not the junk on the ground. It just looks to me like the Chris
Roberts team tried to do WAAAAAAY too much with the technology currently
available, and, for me anyway, this game is a total waste of time.
*************************************************************************
* * *
* * "Too much power *
* Jude M. Greer * is almost enough." *
* jmgr...@starbase.spd.louisville.edu * *
* * Mickey Thompson *
* * *
*************************************************************************
Tim Chown
>It just looks to me like the Chris
>Roberts team tried to do WAAAAAAY too much with the technology currently
>available, and, for me anyway, this game is a total waste of time.
... which probably explains the delayed release; they had to wait for
the 486/66 so at least some people could play it at a reasonable frame
rate. I've played it on a 486/66 and a 486/25, and on both dogfighting
and ground attacks are very difficult due to the jerky screen (even with
a cache and emm). Maybe the B17 idea of a key to cycle through detail
levels "on the fly" would have helped, so you could tune the detail to
the situation, but then you want the detail in the close-up dogfight.
The extra speech pack is fun, but doesn't add anything to the gameplay.
You get digitised speech in flight, different for each member of the
WildCats, and some extra speech in in-between mission sequences.
Overall, if you want a sim with good action and realistic handling, you
play Falcon OFT (with good speech *without* a Soundblaster), but if you
want to use up 42Mb instead, have choppy action, but great graphics,
you buy SC. No doubt SC is a very ambitious game, but I think it can't
be done justice on the machines most people have access to. The minimum
requirements stated should be 486/25, *not* 386SX!!
Interestingly, the manual has a great "speech" from Chris Roberts about
the delay in getting the game out. Sounded like crap to me. And there's
an ad in the "manual" saying "SCII, out Christmas 2012 ... honest!" !!
Yep, the "manual" is pathetic .. looks like it was put together in about
24 hours. There are many things missing, like the fact to select A-G
weapons after you select A-A you have to hit W then G quick to get into
NORM mode from ACM mode. The Falcon OFT manual beats this one flat.
Tim
Dirk Vandenheuvel
:
: > So far it seems like the people who have bought this game have been
: > experiencing problem after problem, and then find out that the game
: > doesn't even scale good or function properly. Now, I've been looking
: > forward to this game for quite a while now, even though I only have
: > a 386 SX, and I'm beginning to think that maybe I shouldn't waste my
: > money on the game. So is this game really worth the money and the
: > hard drive space it will chew up? Maybe I should get Ultima VII Part
: > 2 instead or just wait for Eye of the Beholder III? Recommendations?
:
: If you want to know what I think, DO NOT GET IT!!! I got it this weekend,
: and I have a 486-33 Local Bus and at full detail, it SUCKS!!! I'm taking it
: back Monday.
:
: To be more specific, the frame rate is BAAAD. Especially when you're flying
: around a city. Everything is so incredibly jerky that its maddening to try
: to fly the plane when the smallest sidewards motion on the stick produces
: ~30 degree bank. This makes it impossible to bomb anything on the ground,
: and even dogfighting is terrible, and I found it to be the most enjoyable
: part of the whole game.
:
: Another thing that I really hate about this game is the ground. Either with
: or without Gourad shading, the ground looks like shit. With it on, it looks
: like you're flying over mush, and with it off, the entire ground is composed
: of little triangles of color. I could get NO sense of depth whatsoever, and
: even though this is admittedly very hard to do with a 2-D screen, I've seen
: much better illusion of depth in other flight-sims.
Yep... the lack of depth is a BIG problem is SC (have someone else noticed that the
planes do NOT cast shadows or am I just imagining things??). But as someone else
suggested: maybe the controls are to jerky? If this is so, Origine could *easily* fix
this problem with a patch (I hope).
Greg Cisko
|> In <blasce...@realm.tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca> blas...@realm.tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca (Brad Lascelle) writes:
|>
|> > So far it seems like the people who have bought this game have been
|> > experiencing problem after problem, and then find out that the game
|> > doesn't even scale good or function properly. Now, I've been looking
|> > forward to this game for quite a while now, even though I only have
|> > a 386 SX, and I'm beginning to think that maybe I shouldn't waste my
|> > money on the game. So is this game really worth the money and the
|> > hard drive space it will chew up? Maybe I should get Ultima VII Part
|> > 2 instead or just wait for Eye of the Beholder III? Recommendations?
|>
|> If you want to know what I think, DO NOT GET IT!!! I got it this weekend,
|> and I have a 486-33 Local Bus and at full detail, it SUCKS!!! I'm taking it
|> back Monday.
|>
|> To be more specific, the frame rate is BAAAD. Especially when you're flying
|> around a city. Everything is so incredibly jerky that its maddening to try
|> to fly the plane when the smallest sidewards motion on the stick produces
|> ~30 degree bank. This makes it impossible to bomb anything on the ground,
|> and even dogfighting is terrible, and I found it to be the most enjoyable
|> part of the whole game.
Ditto....
|>
|> Another thing that I really hate about this game is the ground. Either with
|> or without Gourad shading, the ground looks like shit. With it on, it looks
|> like you're flying over mush, and with it off, the entire ground is composed
|> of little triangles of color. I could get NO sense of depth whatsoever, and
|> even though this is admittedly very hard to do with a 2-D screen, I've seen
|> much better illusion of depth in other flight-sims.
|>
Ditto....
|> Still another thing about the game I hate is the terrain. I just don't see
|> why the designers felt it was necessary to put in all that junk like cities
|> and tree clumps when it looks like complete crap anyway. The one thing I'll
|> give this game is that the objects are VERY nicely done. However, this does
|> not justify spending $65-$70 for the damn thing. At the beginning, you can
|> click on a button labeled "View Objects," and you can see all the different
|> planes and objects rotating smoothly. This is pretty impressive, and it may
|> have been a good game had the designers limited it to just the impressive
|> planes, and not the junk on the ground. It just looks to me like the Chris
|> Roberts team tried to do WAAAAAAY too much with the technology currently
|> available, and, for me anyway, this game is a total waste of time.
They should have user Falcons ground terrain, F15III sky rendering & their
objects. THis is of course asking too much of any one company. Maybe a merger
is in order???
Unknown
Well, I play it on a 486/33 8M RAM and I think its great! The graphics are
outstanding and so is the gameplay (you can acutally pick your wingmen and
they acutally shoot down enemies). The victim camrea is fun and I love
watching enemies go down in flames! Alternatively, when I drop some
cluster bombs it's great to see 2 or 3 soft armor targets explode in flames
and leave massive craters on the ground. I usually play will full detail
and I don't have any problem with the frame rate. SC does take some time
to master, though. I played at least 2 days of training missions before I
was good enough to dogfight , bomb and straif ground targets. Practice,
practice, practice!
The speech pack is about the same as the WC II speech pack. Voices are
mostly your wingman and some cinematic sceens, but the voices are much
improved and sound much more professional than WC II. Also, your wingman
will help you out using speech, "Enemy on your six", etc.
One complaint I do have is the sensitivity of the joystick. Its very easy
to pull very sharp turns which makes the frame rate seem low. I eventually
broke down and bought a CH Flightstick which helped tremendously. I have
had 3 lock ups of the computer where I had to do a reset.
All in all I think Origin has exceeded my expectation with SC (it pulled me
away from Serpent Isle). SC is a game of outstanding detail and, more
importantly, outstanding gameplay value.
*************************************************
* David Ingham * "D'oh!" -- H. Simpson *
*************************************************
cvad...@vmsb.is.csupomona.edu
> a 386 SX, and I'm beginning to think that maybe I shouldn't waste my
> money on the game. So is this game really worth the money and the
> hard drive space it will chew up? Maybe I should get Ultima VII Part
> 2 instead or just wait for Eye of the Beholder III? Recommendations?
I think if you only have a 386SX then forget it.
Eye of the Beholder 3 is already out.
--
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------#
| Thus the pagan will be sanctified, the tragic become laughable; great lovers |
| will stoop to sentiment, and demons dwindle down to clockwork toys. |
| --Clive Barker, WEAVEWORLD |
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------#
The Almighty
This article has nothing to do with Strike Commander, it's just my gripe
with Chris Roberts.
It all started with Wing Commander..
When I first played it on my 386dx,, heck no before I got that it was a
286 16 mhz and I thought the game play, speed of the graphics and
overall handling of the simulator was awesome.
Therefore I eagerly waited for WC2 but to my disappointment the gameplay
was adequate, the graphics were the same and to top it off the overall
handling of the simulator was up s**t creek.
Why should this be the case??? I've a long hard look at the game...
What does it boast?
Extra long scenes, slightly enhanced graphics..
for that the speed of the graphics suffered and so did the handling.
Others of you with 486dx66 may flame me but all the speed does is speed
up the crappy coding.. :)
So why should WC2 with almost the same features of WC1 suffer so
greatly.
It would appear the just about the same is happening to SC
Just my thoughts
Allen Tom
>So why should WC2 with almost the same features of WC1 suffer so
>greatly.
The cockpit has more glass in WCII, which means that more of the screen
is updated. In WCI, all the cockpits have really small windows which
make me feel claustrophobic. All of the fighters in WCII enable you to see
out of about 1/2 of the screen, except for the rapier which seems to be
about 1/3 of the screen (a throwback to WCI).
--
+-------=Allen Tom=-------+
| at...@soda.berkeley.edu | Oh no... I know what you want...
| at...@netcom.com | You coveteth my ice cream bar!
+-------------------------+ -- Ren