No, it's not out yet. I'm just getting ready. Please use this thread for all your thoughts, feedback and whatnot about the Battlestations: Pacific Demo, whenever you can stop yourself from playing it. ;)
We certainly hope you like it. Remember, this is just a tiny taste of what to expect in the full game.
Gameshadow seems to work
I just wonder why all this "mess" around the PC link?
Has GAMESPOT failed to load up the data? They did an "event" and after all failed to deliver. What happened?
and last but not least: why not use the Games for Windows Live Marketplace as the primary PC download point. The similar thing works for XBOX360 why not for PC?
Using gameshadow I am at 55% with 8 minutes remaining. PC demo totals 1.3 GB. So the complete demo takes about 20 minutes to download. I am at an 20Mbit line so thats not the problem.
I only have a 8MBit line but the total bandwidth is not utilized yet it comes down with a strong 840kb/sec rate.
But to be honest for PC in these days the best way to distribute large files is through torrents. The more users downloading them the more bandwidth they create so the capacity develops exponentially unlike the "server download" method. Too bad compaines are not seeing this opportunity.
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jaycw2309, well I was suspecting something like this. M$ is acting strange with this G4W live platform. They only have 15 titles so far on their system BS:P is the 16th if I'm right. This demo release could have been an excellent opportunity to point users towards their "Marketplace".
The stranges of all in this that while the demo is not going through the PC Marketplace the 2 skin pack add-ons are there and ready for dowload... ...so what is rEALLy going on with them?
Download completed. Install completed. Installation was smooth I only was able to select a path where I wanted to install the demo. I'm gonna give it a shot now.
Yeah right.
Everybody is watching that fantastic percentage as it is getting closer to 100%.
Good old Murphy said once: it won't be faster just because you're watching it
OK.
I played 30 minutes and dropped off to look around if others are posting first impressions. Here is mine.
First I wanted to say it's great and beautiful. BS:M times 10. Even if I have seen it in BETA it was a great enjoyment.
Then came a quote to my mind from the film ConAir. In the movie if you remember the chief cop guy has a cool sport car. and when he gets a compliment such as "It's a beautiful car" he responds:
Beautiful? Sunsets are beautiful, newborn babies are beautiful. This... this is fucking spectacular!
This is true for Battlestations: Pacific.
one advice: if you tend to be hot-headed and wanting to jump into the action do not do that. Enjoy all bits and pieces one by one. worth it.
Music has been re-written and improved a lot.
Not to mention visuals. Great.
The airplane handling is very different than BS:M. It's more realistic I would say.
I just played the single player campaign, siege, and a few minutes on island capture...all I can say is....BS:M X 100% better=Everything BS:M should of been. This game is epic. Graphics are beautiful, gameplay is very challenging but fun and Siege and Island capture mode rocks!..I'm tired with talking, time to play!!!
The demo is awesome, I got to use a South Dakota class BB against many cruisers. The graphics were sweet. The only problem I have is not being use to the new controls.
I was worried about this,i have a sinking suspicion that the multi player connections still suck ass,and as that was the only thing that marred the first game they dont want us to know it still doesnt work propperly till we buy it!
Damn it! it better work shisters!
I'm content with the game and its only a demo. There's things I can let pass or get use to. The controls are a lot more simplified it just takes getting use to when you have BS:Midway programed into your brain.
I agree with Let Mee Hit It.
The controls have changed significantly to their advantage, however it takes time to get used to it. I keep pressing the BS:M style shortcuts for formation management and such things.
One of the best improvements in control is the damage management. It's quick and straightforward. I also noticed that even "Rookie" AI is using repair in a much more efficient way than in BS:M - or is it just a misread?
Launching units and the command menu is a revolution. I know it will be much quicker and more efficient but it will take time to figure out the best key maps for that. The defult is not something I like... F1 F2 is too far out of reach. I also noticed that on the map screen when the menu is active I can't "click away" from it just by clicking on an unit on the map. I have to press ESC to get out and then click on a unit. I believe it is not really good.
On the positive side the map screen improved a lot, information boxes are much more exact and being able to overview the situation is easier.
Some small notes: in game sound effects are great. The ship's main batteries are sounding now much much better than in Midway. Visual effects are great, the only one I do not like is the torpedo water blast. I think it's not fully volumetric so it is disturbing around the other great ones like fire and smoke.
I do not know if it is only me but I find that controlling planes got more difficult. It is more "simmy" so turns and speeds needs to be watched more carefully. All the planes including fighters become slower and harder to turn, flip, roll...
Last but not least: performance. The DEMO runs smoothly on my Core 2 Duo 6600 processor and ATI 4850 card. Everything is fine, all details are on at 1280x1024 resolution. Perfect.
Theo, don't forget the idea behind the TacMap is that you're able to order units around. I haven't played the demo yet, but I doubt you can do that in the minimap. I'll agree with you on one point though - landing planes would be/is completely pointless now.
Ok the brutal truth. And I don't pull any punches. This should have been released months back so they could fix things in the final build.
The good..yeah the water looks great.The explosions look great, the sky ,sun ,clouds,islands,units look great.
Smoke so so..fire ok..damage modelling better than midway.
The bad..the one huge bad. Mike said the game don't have much screen tearing. LIES! GAME HAS LOTS OF SCREEN TEARING!
I think it may be variable vsync like GOW 1. Seems sometimes no tearing and sometimes lots of it. My stomach and head are both confirming the obvious of course. Screen tearing makes me nauseous and gives me a headache after awhile.
This is my main bitch for this and its a big one. They have taken a game that is a graphical monster. That needs a pretty new pretty powerful computer to run properly and ported it to the 360. Eidos has confirmed they had to turn off vsync to get it to have halfway decent framerates and Mike pretty much said the game looked great on 360. In screen shots maybe. Mike needs new glasses or an eye transplant. I of course tried running the game on 480p,720p,1080i don't have 1080p and talking the 360 version here not computer version.
No difference. Seems to be ok sometimes and sometimes horrible again pointing to variable vsync.
I would hope the final build is fixed but have serious doubts. I want an on/off switch for vsync minimum. Let me choose to have vysn on all the time and take my chances with the framerates. Or let me turn off Antialiasing maybe also with a switch .Or also include a menu so can configure like a computer ,turn off clouds for example,turn off people on ships, turn off shadows.Turn off fancy lighting.
Or Eidos should revamp so the game can do vsync on ,AA on and 30fps steady. I think that can be done if they scale back on some of the above stuff that don't matter at all.
Midway graphics were simpler but functional. Midway has no tearing,framerate got a bit unsteady I think in some hectic campaign missions but generally was fine.
Midway was an xbox game ported over to 360. Current Pacific is a computer game ported over to 360.
I may buy the finished game ,want to support Eidos and the Midway/Pacific thing but really I am not sure how long a period of time can play this screen tearing POS.
Ok lets leave this on a positive note. Do what I said above with a dashboard with vsync on/off, AA on/off and some of those details on /off and the game will be fine.
You say you like to listen to your fans SO LISTEN. DO WHAT I SUGGESTED ABOVE MINIMUM AND ON/OFF SWITCH FOR VSYNC.
And don't tell me how they figured out how to stop screen tearing with vsync turned off. At best its variable and worst its off.
Actually after more time on it think its set to variable.
Better than off full time but still not good enough.
One game I hold up as gold standard on 360 is Ace Combat 6. This game has baby butt smooth framerate, vsync on, aa on. Possibly they use triple buffering with vysnc on to keep the framerates up. They have lots of enemies on screen,missles flying around, lots happening.Ground detail close to the ground is reduced and that might help the framerates. Pacific needs good ground detail but could cut back in other areas.shadows for sure, lighting possibly. Number or any people on the ships,there are areas of detail that could be scaled back.
I am going to start a petition type of thread on here and hope you guys will back me on this. Give those of us that hate screen tearing a chance to choose on/off. It don't take much to put a switch on there it was done in Saints Row and Bioshock.
I think the screen tearing is going to drag the game reviews down to mabye a 7/10 from what should be a 8 maybe even 8.5 /10. Heck if it ran like butter a 9/10 is not out of the question. Sure some reviewers are not going to mention it but any reviewer worth a damn should be .
One reviewer gave Blazing Angels an 8.8. It has horrible tearing. Another reviewer cut it down bad for it and gave it a 6.6. This game as said is not quite as bad as pretty sure its variable. I have played and not seen any ripping and then minute later its rip city with even the map ripping. GOW thats Gears of War one did same thing.
Not acceptable. No screen tearing is acceptable this gen.
Take out details,build the game to the console .Don't build it to some high end computer spec and don't think the average gamer won't notice tearing. Some are going to say its no big deal. My stomach and head think it is!
I want my on/off switch !
Otherwise good work on the game.If don't get it as it makes me sick in current form may get it if you patch it down the road. May also get it if 720 is backwards compatible and will let me run vsync on.
And no more talk about how you can turn off vsync and not have tearing Mike. There is no magic . But have heard triple buffering if the system can spare the memory? can help keep framerates high with vsync on.
XXXDUDE: you might have a valid point about vsync but the way you present yourself is sub standard.
Also I really hate so called "review"ers with a given agenda. you do not talk about the game, the features, anything you just push your agenda that is just as bad as not having a vsync switch.
Sometimes the frontal assault is not the right way of doing things. You may want to think this over.
Furthermore you're wrong in facts:
BS:M was originally developed for XBOX and not for XBOX360. It has been said in interviews that this is why the visuals were a bit poor relative to other XBOX360 titles. As a positive effect of this was that XBOX360 was great in handling the processing capacity. BS:M was a console port for PC
BS:P was designed having the XBOX360 in mind (see interviews) It was not developed for PC it was built for XBOX360 and then ported to PC. A PC game for example would never have controls like BS:P has - since the gamepad controller was the focus not the keyboard mouse.
You are so angry that your objectivity is completely gone. You are incapable of judging things. You need to calm down and think all this over.
Demo Feedback Thread
No, it's not out yet. I'm just getting ready. Please use this thread for all your thoughts, feedback and whatnot about the Battlestations: Pacific Demo, whenever you can stop yourself from playing it. ;)
We certainly hope you like it. Remember, this is just a tiny taste of what to expect in the full game.