Well, I picked this up this morning and I've just installed and played through the ( far too short and basic ) tutorial mission and I'm about halfway through the first "proper" mission.
My first thoughts on this game are "Oh dear......".
The biggest spoiler for me is the camera. It's absolutely
awful. You cannot zoom in or out nor change the view or pan round. You just have to go with what it lets you go with.
As already mentioned, the tutorial is far too basic and hardly explains anything. You can only group a max of 3 units which is pretty hopeless.
The "whip" control system is "different" I will say that much. It works up to a point, but then it becomes difficult to pinpoint exactly what unit you want to move if there are a couple of units sat close to each other.
The difficulty level seems to be set very high, the enemies are very tough and your own unit AI is pretty rubbish. They will auto fire on enemies close by but move them to a point on the field of battle and if they happen to run past an enemy unit coming the other way they will run straight through them without firing, then stop a bit further on and turn round. Only then will they return fire ( if there are any left alive that is ).
The visuals are nice ( nothing special though ) and the audio effects not bad either.
I'm thinking that this could be a reasonable game -
but not yet. It needs a good few issues addressed with any forthcoming patch.
It also appears to be the kind of RTS which is only accessible by a player if they are prepared to look past its failings and problems and invest a serious amount of time in it getting to know how to play it. It's certainly not "pick up and play" like say the C&C series or Supreme Commander was.
All in all, very disappointing. I won't give up on it just yet, I think I will leave it installed and see what any patches bring but for now its back to Men of War for me.
