| Author |
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars pre-review |
BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
|  Posted: 2007-06-21 07:44
I know several people in DarkSpace are ET fans (and big ones at that), so I figured that I'd give my viewpoint on the game, since I spent about 12 hours solid playing it over, and over, and it's closed beta.
First off, the engine:
I was expecting a little more graphical "UNF", when it came to ET:QW. After all, it's using the Doom 3 engine, and Quake 4 looked fantastic, like an upgrade from the original Doom 3. ET:QW doesn't look like it's mover forward any, it's just Doom 3/Quake 4 outside. Having said that, the game runs smooth as a babies behind, which might explain why they didn't spend time upgrading the engine graphics-wise, and I can't complain about that.
I was running along on my older machine at 60 fps all the time, with no fluxuations in framerate or other. I was running it at the medium setting on this particular machine, and was surprised at the level of detail the game managed to keep, yet still manage to run faster. The amount of polish they've put into the engine-side of things is just phenominal. I thought the game would have problems running on some mid-range machines, but it seems like the game's pretty much built around them.
Loading times are a major pain in my behind, and I detest any and all games that refuse to load quickly on a machine that's capable of doing so, or even not. Battlefield 2/2142 was a prime example of this, and is the main reason I don't play it anymore. ET:QW on the other hand, loads quicker than I could ever imagine possible for a game like this. It has textures the size of the Milky Way, and models with so many pixels, you wonder if your monitor has enough to display them! Somehow, they've pulled some manner of witch-craft and bypassed the generalisation that "PRETTY = LONG LOADING TIMES". I only have 1GB of ram in this machine, and the game pretty much ran from memory the entire time I was playing - awesome.
Gameplay:
I had some gripes with the gameplay - mostly how imbalanced some of the classes are, like the Cov Ops. The sniper wibbles about like you have an elephant tap danacing on the end of your rifle, and to make matters worse - it takes 2-3 shots to the body to kill someone. Headshots, of course, are one hits - but the chances of getting them are slim - to - none.
Another gripe I have is that the human team seem to win all the time, yet the Stroggs (evil alien, borg-like race) seem more powerful in their weapons. For instance - the Strogg get a jetpack like upgrade at some point, and it's rediculously hard to kill them, or even get shots off on them.
I've no doubt that, with this being a beta, all of these complaints will be sorted and knowing Splash Damage, they won't ship the game without being 100% happy.
Vehicles are an absolute hilarious endevour, with pretty much everything having a "Turbo" option. They're all well designed, with weakspots in some areas, meaning strategy is a must against some of the several mile-high walkers. Some of the vehicles are a little "wobbly", and rock all over the place, like the Strogg tank. Again, I have no doubt SD will fix these types of things before the game ships Gold - but for now it makes for some pretty interesting tactics (wobbling up onto two wheels to get past a short passage).
The general gameplay feels like Quake 3: Arena, but on a Battlefield 2142-esque sized map. Infact, it feels like a Quake version of Battlefield 2142 almost to the bone. Me and my brother had a little disagreement over this - mostly over who copied who, as ET:QW has a rewards/unlock system quite like BF's. It works - just, but I can't help feeling that it's just a Quake version of BF.
Having said that, though, isn't a bad thing. Everything about ET:QW is fast. Loading, gameplay, mayhem - everything, sort of like Battefield 2142: Arena, and that isn't a bad thing. I hated BF for its long loading times randomly, and an un-optomised engine - this is what BF should of been.
I love the "beta" to bits and back, and I can't help but feel this type of gameplay/style will be the next big thing - it seems to be catching. I have never played a beta as polished as this - ever. I would call it more of a demo, and to be honest, with the release date set to next month, it would seem more fitting to call it that.
If I had some kind of meaningless "EDITORS CHOICE" or "GOLD PLAY!" award to give this game, I would.
[ This Message was edited by: BackSlash *Jack* on 2007-06-21 07:45 ]
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Sauur
Chief Marshal
Praetorian Wolves
Joined: November 30, 2004
Posts: 475
| Posted: 2007-06-21 09:02
Very nice - thanks for that Jack!
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-RevenG-
Raven Warriors
Joined: March 03, 2004
Posts: 2673
| Posted: 2007-06-21 14:39
Pics please.
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Sardaukar
Admiral
Raven Warriors
Joined: October 08, 2002
Posts: 1656
| Posted: 2007-06-21 14:40
DL'ing it now.... oh man, that Engineer kit looks so sweet.
EDIT - Also, I cannot believe how small the file is. 847mb... I was expecting 2gb.
[ This Message was edited by: Sardaukar *R2D2* on 2007-06-21 14:56 ]
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Ramius
Fleet Admiral
Agents
Joined: January 12, 2002
Posts: 894
From: Ramius
| Posted: 2007-06-21 16:05
So... would you say this is an equivalent of TFC?
[ This Message was edited by: Ramius on 2007-06-21 16:05 ]
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Sardaukar
Admiral
Raven Warriors
Joined: October 08, 2002
Posts: 1656
| Posted: 2007-06-21 21:20
Wow. Just turned off the FPS cap in the game... SOOOO much better now. Feels smoother.
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Captain Caveman
Cadet
Joined: October 12, 2002
Posts: 668
| Posted: 2007-06-22 04:26
What's the bunny hopping like in-game? I despise bunny hoppers and was wondering if Quake have toned it down a bit.
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BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
| Posted: 2007-06-22 05:46
Quote:
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On 2007-06-22 04:26, Captain Caveman wrote:
What's the bunny hopping like in-game? I despise bunny hoppers and was wondering if Quake have toned it down a bit.
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Can't do it.
@Sard - unlock FPS?
[ This Message was edited by: BackSlash *Jack* on 2007-06-22 06:41 ]
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Sardaukar
Admiral
Raven Warriors
Joined: October 08, 2002
Posts: 1656
| Posted: 2007-06-22 15:47
You can edit the etqwconfig.cfg file in the ETQW folder in My Documents to remove the 30FPS framerate cap ingame. It feels much smoother without it- BUT- after I did that, I began to experience rare moments of 1 or 2 second lockups- very, very rare, and annoying, but not killers. I have my FPS capped at 90 now, because I'm a lazy copy and paster...
Before I put these in, my game felt really twitchy.
Quoted from the ETQW Beta Forums (that is the hardest accronym to type, ever)
Quote:
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Open your "etqwconfig" file in your Documents. Add these commands, if they aren't already present (if they are already there, just edit them):
com_unlockFPS "1" - this is the master cvar. If you do not set this to 1 then ETQW will never attempt to exceed 30fps.
com_unlock_timingMethod "0" - this removes the timing restriction which is otherwise set to multiples of 30. Ie; otherwise if you can't get 60fps, it will run at 30. With the timing method turned off I'm now usually getting between 70 and 120fps on high detail.
If you don't like dropping from 200fps down to 60fps during intense battles and prefer something more consistant:
com_unlock_maxFPS "90" - this will make your maximum FPS 90 but ONLY if you change the timing mode to 1 instead of 0. The problem here is that if you can't pull 90fps, it will automatically bounce back to 60 (even if you can render 85fps fine).
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[small][ This Message was edited by: Sardaukar *R2D2* on 2007-06-22 15:49 ][/small]
[ This Message was edited by: Sardaukar *R2D2* on 2007-06-22 15:51 ]
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