The Strange Path From CM x 1 to CM x 2

[KG_Jag]

It appears that Michael Dorosh has gone from fan to banned at Battlefront. Among other things, we was made a beta tester for CMSF, but apparently held a number of dissenting views from most of the rest of that group and from Battlefront.

Here's the comments and observations of a European game reviewer and major Usenet contributor:

"You probably know this already, but if you wonder what happened to
your pal Michael Dorosh : he got banned.


They're refusing to say why and his last post(s) were edited out so
there's no telling why, but I bet his review of CM:SF on Amazon had
something to do with it :
Posting it here in case it gets "lost" at other sites as well - the
review of a guy who went from uber-fanboy to public enemy #1.


'What you get out of this game, like anything, will depend on what
your expectations are. Presuming that you are approaching this title
for the same reasons that people approached the first three CM titles,
and for the same reasons that the developers claim to have published
the game, this reviewer feels you will likely be disappointed. That
reason would be to find a playable, entertaining, perhaps even thought-
provoking squad-based, company level tactical 3D wargame.
The positives; CM:SF at its most basic level seems like its
predecessors. The player is presented with an open ended game with a
map editor, scenarios, a linked-scenarios game option, and a random
scenario generator. Play is still turn-based, with 1 minute "movies"
interspersed with orders phases in which both sides give orders. Play
is resolved simultaneously. Even board game designers knew that "Si-
Move" was more realistic that sequential turns back in the early
1970s. Additionally, those Zombie-critters in the first CM games have
been replaced with stunning 3D models, and adequate animations. All
the wheels on the tanks turn, men reload magazines, they even give
first aid to injured soldiers. And hey, you want to play in real time
and forget the goofy turn system, there is a real time option too. And
if you still want to stop and catch a breath, you can pause the real
time. They fixed the "borg spotting" and now each unit traces LOS
independently of others.


So what could possibly be wrong? It's the same old CM, just better,
and more features, right?
Unfortunately, no. Aside from the most obvious change - a modern day
fictional war in Syria that may or may not appeal - many of the old CM
features have been gutted. First of all, the game is so data-heavy,
with individual tracking of ammunition and small arms fire, that PBEM
files are bloated. There is also no way to play turn-based over the
internet. It's real time only. If you were a fan of the Quick Battles
- there are no random maps. The data was too much to do be able to do
them "on the fly". There are no more point purchase systems for the
QBs, either.

In game, there are a lot of handy features that didn't make the
transition - LOS tools or ambush or shoot-n-scoot or seek hull down.
Some have work arounds (the target command works as an LOS - unless
you have an unarmed unit).

The main objection is that the biggest complaint about the old CM -
the 3-man representations on the map of entire infantry squads - have
been replaced with 1:1 representation. But the individuals on the map
don't act like individuals. Just about everything is abstracted; there
are no interior walls in buildings - but there are exterior windows
and doors (you can tell because the men won't jump through the
windows, and the pathfinding is so poor that men will run circles
around entire buildings trying to find the doors even if it means
exposing themselves to fire to do it). LOS is supposedly drawn to each
man individually, but an underlying 8x8m grid of "Action Spots" also
controls such things as movement - though there are no visual clues on
the map as to what is determined by the action spots, or where they
are, exactly. You still control squads as if they were squads - not
individuals - which means if you want to replenish your squad's ammo
from its APC (another welcome new feature) - you send the entire squad
running off the firing line to do it where in real life you'd just
send one man back for an ammo can or an armful of bandoliers. There is
a serious "scale-mismatch" as one veteran wargamer described it at the
official forums. The developers lost sight of what made the original
game fun and tried to broaden their retail base to include real time
customers while abandoning commitment to crucial philosophies of game
design.

Worst, perhaps, the AI has largely been removed. Granted, it was silly
to watch platoon HQs and mortars leading counterattacks in the first
CM games, but the AI in CM:SF is entirely scripted. The scenario
designer now sets the agenda by having the enemy react to the clock,
not the tactical situation. There is still a TacAI, but the developers
are still working out the bugs, and it mostly determines defensive
actions. The AI won't counter-attack you if you take a victory
location - unless the script calls for it. There are multiple scripts
available for each scenario, but the AI still won't act dynamically to
what you are doing except by sheer coincidence.

The "campaign" released with the game replaces the popular Operations
model of the earlier CM games. You will never be able to fight over
the same terrain as in the early games. Instead, you have a simplistic
branch system of linked scenarios with which you have no control to
make decisions on which units you will employ - you're there for the
ride.

If you're mostly interested in pretty graphics, CM:SF won't
disappoint. The night-time effects are good; daytime effects are ok -
still some work to be done on shadows, and battlefront has said they
have no way to fix the fact that bunkers and trenches are impossible
to hide. That's right - you buy a bunker or a trench and the terrain
is deformed wherever you put it, and the enemy can see that wherever
you place it on the map. Not cool for head-to-head play. Between two
friends, not an issue, but perhaps its no small wonder there haven't
been any tournament ladders springing up with the same wild abandon
they did for the first CM games. As nice as the vehicles look on the
move, other animations are silly - inappropriate weapons reload
animations (those US troops don't know how to use the hold-open device
on a reloaded M4 apparently) and really silly building demolitions -
pull you out of the environment pretty quickly.

The official forums for the game will inform you far better than a
review here. The fact this game went to the clearance bin so quickly
should inform you also. Nine months after release and the game has
seen 8 patches (one was required on release day) with no official
announcement to when the patches will be complete. And yet the game is already retailing for less than 8 dollars. Compare the price of this
game to that of its earlier predecessor Combat Mission: Barbarossa to
Berlin, still retailing around the 20 dollar mark on Amazon.
8 dollars is a fair price for this product and there are enough fans
to be found at the official website that you will find plenty of
company to enjoy the game with. The developer has promised at least
one add-on module to incorporate Marines into the game with additional
Syrian units. Best advice is to download the demo and try it out for
yourself. Bear in mind the latest patch features will likely not be
reflected in the latest demo, as this does not get updated with each
patch.


A word to the wise, however - an educated guess is that when this game
engine progresses to the Second World War, the modern setting will be
quickly forgotten. The developer has only one coder working on their
titles, and demand for the WW II version has been high. After a series
of mediocre releases (CM:SF, Theatre of War, T-72), BFC will be
looking to appeal to new audiences - there will likely be little
future in modules for this one after the promised Marines module comes
out, if demand for the WWII titles is as high as is anticipated and
sales of that popular genre manage to eclipse the modern games. "

-

Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx"

See post #34 here:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp....0563?scoring=d&