Here are my comments on the game:

This game would be not bad in 1993. It has no gameplay, and looks average. The AI (squad and enemy) are dumb as bricks - don't confront them, just position yourself so as to see just the elbow of the enemy and keep shooting it until the guy goes down. He will never move nor react. I did this through the entire first section.

Graphics are average, but even so, the game frames out constantly as you are looking around the "outside", depending on how much there is to render in any given direction. The outside being a small street with dead ends everywhere but where you are supposed to be going.

You can see a lot of Far Cry visual influence in this game (indoor Far Cry only) in the doors and props, which would be good if they knew how to pull it off.

I could take long loading times in games that it made sense in (like FC), but this game I cannot honestly say WHY in the hell does it take 5 minutes to load that crappy level.

Starforce is the least of this game's problems.
Russian studios: Please, stop making games like these. You are not selling them very well, you are not gaining good rep from them (it's actually quite the contrary).

Why does every discussion about every game on this site always degrade to some discussion about prices, publisher strategies or download speeds?

I have been reading this site for a few years now, and I can honestly say that there are probably about 5 people here who are genuinely interested in the games that the site reports on.

Who cares if the next episode will be 3 or 4 or 50 hours? Is it going to have constantly respawning enemies? Will it have more of the same "oh I reached a dead end - hmm lets look for a hidden ladder somewhere" syndrome? Is it going to allow the player some more choice? In HL2, try getting off the hovercraft and walk to the next objective - NONE OF THE F*ING TRIGGERS WILL HIT! You can freely walk around the frozen rebel models and shoot them to your heart's content without a reaction.
Is it going to have "suspended" enemies that you can see from far away, and you can shoot from far away, but they only respond or take damage once you hit an invisible trigger volume? That's what I am interested in.

And about corridor shooters: When I say the genre died, it means thats when developers needed to move on. Far Cry moved on - it was a step in the right direction. Who else took a step forward?

... that makes Half Life 2 not suck?

I'll pay more than 12 dollah to see that miracle.

Corridor shooting died with HalfLife one. Stop whining because you know you will all buy it, regardless how shitty or short it is - you did it for Half Life 2.

Not only that, you will bawl over how cool it is once you buy it. And Valve will keep serving it to you.

I remember the original games that this game is supposed to pull its inspiration from, and they were about 23 times cooler than this game - and that's saying a lot.

The game looks average, but looks aren't what is bringing this game down. Its the completely contrived gameplay - a shooting gallery? Who still makes that. The AI is horrendous as they do not seem to notice people getting shot right next to them. After killing everyone on the river bank, stroll to the little wooden hut on the left - there is a guy leisurly smoking a cigar Hehe I played it twice and saw that guy every time.

The stealth aspect with the spy is laughable. First of all, there are invisible walls EVERYWHERE, so you cannot circumvent enemies. It took me bloody 20 minutes to figure out that in order to progress past the first patrol in the stealth mission, I just have to dash straight past them!!! What the hell - what kind of spying is that. All the stuff about don't be noticed, sneak through is completely useless - I tried sneaking but when I got discovered I just shot the guy... A patrol of guys just 20 meters down the road didn't seem to care at all, so when I got to them, they were smoking a cigarette. So I killed them as well, got the officer's uniform and strolled past the guards 20 meters away that curiously did not see or hear anything from my machine gun.

Looking through the lock? Why - just bust down the door and kill the two pathetic enemies.

Sad - this sounded like a good idea, but crappy AI and invisible walls coupled with terrible level design - spies running past patrols like in Looney Tunes - just makes this game lousy.

I don't understand why this demo was released.

I haven't played an RTS in a long time, and I fully expected to be surprised by how far the genre would be now. Imagine my disappointment when I played this game.

Honestly, I don't know why anyone would play this game instead of Warcraft III, and that is a few years old already. Its fairly standard stuff - you may like it for the setting - I find it quite cheesy.

There are no advances in troop control, and all battles ultimately dissolve into chaos and are decided by sheer numbers. The two birds that appear in the tutorial are really funny, and the animation for them is really bad. Otherwise, the game looks quite good - although the buildings seem lit only by ambient color - very little shadow detail there.

There are a fair amount of units on the screen, but since they are hard to control, it quickly becomes quite confusing.

Building of your base has some advantages - like the interesting wall building method - but overall its too run-of-the-mill.

This whole genre is long overdue for an overhaul. This aint it.

This just goes to show that making a flashy tech-demo with cool graphics is easy.

Getting a multiplayer deathmatch going in such a tech demo is somewhat challenging, but doable.

Making a full blown game (with AI, missions, objectives and game logic) is the problem. It seems that these Ukrainian guys don't have it in them do pull it off. This game will come out, but it will be something like Firestarter with better tech and bigger levels.

I was surely hoping for something else, but this just proves that the developer team cannot pull it off.

And what they will be doing for the next 12 months? The on site publisher producer will start cutting back features that don't work or are half implemented. They will stabilize what is left and market it like hell, hoping that they get something back on their investment from the people that have been waiting for this game for a long time and will buy it just to see what came out of it.


This comment was edited on Feb 8, 13:34.

Well that brought back nice 4th grade memories...

I guess there will be no evolution for forum-dwellers after all.

Now cmon, run Forrest, run...

So is viral meningitis... But unfortunately you seem to be getting away.

Just FYI, if this game sells any more by me advertising it to this sorry bunch - I want a cut!

This game is cutting-edge... It's a nice break from dark FPS's, and it shows how to use light and darkness effectivelly in a game.

Doom3, take some lessons.

I loved the flashlight, and the action sequences are only about 7 times more exciting than in Doom 3. It's kinda like Crusader: No Regret/No Remorse... Only in 3d and with much better atmosphere.

The character animations are a little funky, but overall, the game is very atmospheric. The weapons feel very powerfull and the upgrade system is easy to use.

The fixed camera is kinda cool - in a retro sort of way. It sure focuses the action. Where in an FPS you would be flailing the mouse like a madman, here you have better overview and you can move coherently, especially when multiple monsters attack.

Kudos to the developer, I am preordering this one. PC gaming is not dead (although this would make a nice console port :))

Of course I played it, how could I have posted my opinion of something I haven't seen? Although, there seems to be a lot of that going on here

FPS style? You need to play more FPS games. Shooting the trex did not make any meaningfull difference, and anyway you have too little ammo to do anything. Running up to the spears was just too simplistic. The interaction for the player was brought to an absolute minimum. Just like a movie. The only way to influence the game was to hurl a spear into the dinosaur, and it would change movement direction for a while. Is this a game? I do give them that the atmosphere of being easy pray was well conveyed, but there wasn't much you could do about it.

The kong section is laughable. It was basically press space and/or left mouse button. Sure, it looked great - two beasts figting, but you could read a book while playing this game, if you just tap the left mouse button repeatedly. Every once in a while you would press LMB near some post and the monkey would use that post to hit the dinosaur - big freaking deal.

You cannot have a game without game-play. Sorry, mashing a button does not consititute gameplay. I agree some classic plaform games do it like this, but man wake up its the 21st century. We have new classics and they do not suck as bad.

Its a movie that you have to mash a button to get it to continue. Its got cool visuals and cool sound, but so do millions of other movies.

There is no control here, action is completely sporadic - something happens completely by chance, there is no way to PLAY this - if you are content on just watching something cool, and not being a part of making it appear cool, then this is the movie for you.

Anyone who calls this a game should be shot... out of cannon... into the sun.

This comment was edited on Oct 7, 15:47.

Motivate yourself to start in a mode other than Easy. You know this game needs to be playable for other "non-grumpy" kids as well...