madmax559 on 2/3/2002 at 01:57

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Hi,
some quick first impressions ***warning !!! not necessarily good so take it as constructive criticism :)

hey i code for a living hence the detailed format below ;)
& the extensive nitpicking

all these suggestions are mine so feel free to use them or discard them

obviously i hope the game will turn out to be another underworld...my all time favourite.


[Specs]
1.pIII 550 1gb ram sb live 5.1 geforce ddr
2.windows 2000 sp2 dx 8.0
3.ran this at 1024x768x32bpp


[installation]
1.reboot notice even before the install begins ?
-- will need to be fixed in the final release ...not exactly confidence inspiring
for a tech demo
2.obviously the final build will wind up using wise or msi or something else
so maybe we'll see changes for the next demo

[sound]
1.sound stutters
--out of synch before any gfx are displayes
--loops during the splash screen & locks up
--did the same guy do all the voices ?
--prolly my ears but ssound inflections seem to be off during delivery


[graphics]
1.unable to view intro correctly
--screen locks up so i was forced to set 1st_time=1 so i 'll assume i did miss the intro
2.initial mode set to 640x480
-- why ?? simply give the user a pick list to select one otherwise during a lockup
the whole screen/desktop looks messed when attempting to kill the process
(nb. mode was correctly restored)
3.flames & textures look pretty good
the 2 health & spheres look pixelated & somehow seem out of place
(possible color clash ? ;)
4.generate character screen
--please get rid of / change the moving char in the window....it looks like its "stuck on"
--fonts are hard to read (glasses me thinks ;) but the char screen doesnt look as professional as the rest of the program (think...theif...which looks integrated)

[movement]
1.i might have missed this but is there a zoom function using the mouse wheel ?
2.is there any other way to move apart from the keyboard aka uw2


[gameplay]
1.looks good so far :) will test on an amd 1.2ghz/1gb ram/gf3 next
2.it does really remind me a lot of uw2 ....if only it didnt crash so much

[misc]
1.any specific hardware you guys would like me to test this on ?
(if i have it ofcourse)

To my fellow taffers/ttlgr's

Please voice your opinions here...its a demo/test after all
and any input is better than none & would make for a kick ass product :)

thanx for reading this

pete

Dark Angel on 2/3/2002 at 09:10

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Eh, it was quite a disappointment for me....it didn't turn out to be what i had imagined it.

The character is just ...to put it simple, a dork :p
The personal objectives (well i've only seen the first one so far) bother me, if the character has lost its memory why would it care about finding out who it is? Shouldn't it be our purpose as the player to make a new identity for them? i think that the character identity should be mysterious so that we can BE that character, as being ourselves. (ie Thief, System Shock 2) though i guess the character is mysterious in the sense that we have no idea who he is or anything....though the way he talks and all, he just doesn't seem like he has much depth....it also bothered me that there's no female characters to choose from :erm:
Also, i must say that the player movement is just horrible. i feel like i have bearly any control at all...if there was a physic system of some sort then all of that could change and have a feeling. The movement really just reminds me of DeusEx in this reguard, i don't feel like i'm in the body. Along with the way objects land and collide...they have this "zero-gravity" effect when thrown and sometimes get stuck in mid-air when they collide. i think that having a good physic system is the most important thing for a first person "game" like this. i know they're running out of time...but i seriously think they need to push the release date back as far as they need it to be. Havok physics would be *drool* great if at all possible and Arx would benefit greatly from it.

i have a lot more comments on it, but i think i'll try to finish the demo before i do that :)

PraetorJudis on 2/3/2002 at 14:33

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This demo has more than met my expectations. I fiddled with mouse sensitivity, and read through the readme carefully to take advantage of the interface short cuts. I haven't had any problems with the controls because of this.

On the atmosphere of the game? I feel trapped in there. Downright claustrophobic. These references to this "Traveler's Guild" have me suspicious. I also have a theory...


[SPOILER]You are that rat man that attacked the wizard in the intro.[/SPOILER]

I could be way off base about that, but it occured to me and I wanted to say it now so that if it's true, I won't be crying out, "I knew it," to an unimpressed audience. ;)

On interactivity? I've made a fishing pole, ruined several perfectly good short swords with my attempts at smithing, cooked fish, found flour and water, and a rolling pin (I'll start trying to make bread soon), found a mortar and pestle, healing herbs, and empty flasks (I'll be trying to make potion next play through).

I like the magic system so far. I was most worried about that, but it seems pretty forgiving, at least for the few runes we've picked up so far.

Sure, I have one or two little issues, but I'm more than willing to forget them and focus on the quality aspects that will go a long way to making this game rank up there with Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss.

StuntyExtreme on 2/3/2002 at 15:11

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Just my 2 cents...
Very encouraging. A few quibbles, mostly about movement, physics and combat needing to be 'tightened up' a little. Lip-synching a bit off. Other than that, I loved it. And that little puppy outside the tavern is the cutest thing I've ever seen in a game. Erm, cute in a fluffy puppy sort of way, not... you know... anyway. Love the magic system.
If released now, it could turn out to be a pretty good game. However, with one final bout of tweaking, the guys at Arkane could have the fantasy genre's Deus Ex on their hands.

Saam on 2/3/2002 at 17:04

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Played for about 45 minutes, it's looking really good! It didn't ask me to reboot my machine for the game to install, maybe it's OS-related? I'm running Windows XP Pro. The game has only crashed once to desktop, and that was when I was changing the Bits-per-pixel to 16 instead of 32 (makes the game a lot smoother).

The immersion is definitely there, that's the main thing. And it's wonderful! :)

I only have a few grips:

-Game is too dark, even with gamma all the way to full & my monitor's brightness at max (like what JediK said).

-Player movement is a bit quirky, maybe it's because of my mouse sensitivity so I'll try playing around with it more. Maybe it takes getting used to, a la System Shock 1.

-My main gripe was the customizing controls -- a bug, I'll explain:

In other games, I usually use my keyboard's arrow keys for movement, and the keypad to the right of it for 'other' commands, like crouching, opening inventory. For instance, keypad 1 (also 'End' if you turn numlock off) is usually crouching for me, etc etc.. when I map these keys in the Options menu, it maps them as '1', '4', and so forth, meaning when I'm in the game, playing, to Crouch, instead of pressing the '1' on the keypad to the right of the arrow keys, it maps it to the '1' above the alphabet keys. Same thing with the other numbers as well.

That was my biggest gripe, but if that gets fixed, I think Arkane definitely has a winner on their hands. Woo! :D