Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (Beta) - First Impressions

Console/PC game reviews by 5punkers

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Dog Pants
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Post by Dog Pants »

I think all the sounds are a bit flimsy, apart from the jet flying overhead which makes me want to duck every time.

Good points so far:
Objective based missions
Nice steady advancement system
Spawning in waves
Seems stable

Bad points so far:
Weapons are underpowered
Sound is a bit crap
Seems to be attracting all the BEEF knobheads
Dr. kitteny berk
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Post by Dr. kitteny berk »

Dog Pants wrote:Bad points so far:
Weapons are underpowered
- This, sorta, but they all are. so kinda not too.
Sound is a bit crap
- apparently they might have released the beta with less shiny textures etc to keep the size down, similar may have happened with sound. but I agree, it's lacking a little
Seems to be attracting all the BEEF knobheads
- It's an open beta, it'll be full of twats for a week or so.
Dog Pants
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Post by Dog Pants »

Yeah, it's the weapons thing that's my only real gripe. You don't really seem to be able to get the jump on somebody beacuse it takes a second or two of emptying rounds into them before they die, by which time their mates have turned round and killed you. I tend to just use grenades at close range, but you only get two.
Gunslinger42
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Post by Gunslinger42 »

I finally figured out why my mines havent been working, who'd have thought you'd have to arm them :roll:
Lee
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Post by Lee »

After playing this for a bit I think this might be the game to finally get me back into playing multiplayer FPSes. I finish my last exam tommorow so I plan on spending most of the day playing CAEK wars :)

It seems like it'll be pretty good for 5punk only games aswell since the objectives keep the action focused in one area of the map so it should work well with lower numbers of players.
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Post by Dr. kitteny berk »

Another annoying thing.

no way to work out what way the legs on the walker are facing.

makes for some very Austin powers moments.
Lee
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Post by Lee »

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:Another annoying thing.

no way to work out what way the legs on the walker are facing.

makes for some very Austin powers moments.
There's two green arrows near the top of the screen just below the cockpit, one shows the way your legs are pointing and the other shows the way your cockpit is pointing. They're a bit faint though, I didn't notice them at first.
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Post by Dr. kitteny berk »

ahh, I shall have a look for those. here I was thinking they'd be on all the prettiness at the bottom :)
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Post by Duke of Ted »

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:no way to work out what way the legs on the walker are facing.
i think there is a green arrow that circles your crosshair :edit: nm :P
Gunslinger42 wrote:My only complaint with it so far is the delay when getting in and out of vehicles or zooming in and out, but that'll probably be resolved for the final game.
:above: hopefully they sort that out

only had a quick go but i'm impressed so far
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Post by Dog Pants »

After last night's game I'm warming to it a bit more. I've got the hang of rocket sniping, so that's made me happier, and the unlocks actually make the launcher quite effective.

Great moments so far:

- Shooting Berk's jeep out from under him, only to rocket snipe him when he jumped out
- Shooting down Icarus jumpers because they've lingered long enough to get a lock on them
- Blowing up an Icarus that a sniper has used to get to a vantage point and foolishly sat next to, killing them with the explosion
- Surprising an unlucky Strogg who was charging towards the sewer objective, thinking it was still held by them, by rocketing him at point blank
- Timing a grenade so it blew up an Icarus in flight
HereComesPete
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Post by HereComesPete »

My first impressions.

Graphics- I expected it to look better, Im aware its a beta and its final polish will be better, also for a d/l it can only be so big before people complain.

General Gameplay- fairly fast paced, your never that far from the action, this might change on a bigger map.

Weapons-Feel weak, shotgun excepted, personally the charge time on the rockets infuriates me, I got shot whilst leaning round a corner, my body bounced back the merest of inches and the resulting rocket hit the wall blowing the shit out of me, partly my fault I know, but given the fact that the assault rifle was the offending weapon, whut teh fuck? Unlocked my nade launcher/plasma launcher, loved both, this game will do the same as beef, offer a massive advantage to those with time invested, the longer this happens the less likely you are to get new players who persevere because they get owned, the n00bs.

Vehicles-Again Im aware its a beta and the purpose of this is polish and bugs, the occasional glitches Ive had can be forgiven, the handling cannot, its not good to make human vehicles handle like laggy pieces of crap, or the strogg ones to float around like turds on ice, fine control needs plenty of tweaking. Also, tanks cannot climb trees, fact. Love the icarus though.

Im glad i preordered this I will be playing it, lots, however ut3 is on the way, so I dont know how long this will retain my attention.
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Post by Dr. kitteny berk »

HereComesPete wrote: Unlocked my nade launcher/plasma launcher, loved both, this game will do the same as beef, offer a massive advantage to those with time invested, the longer this happens the less likely you are to get new players who persevere because they get owned, the n00bs.
Do the upgrades actually last between games? I've not noticed any upgrades sticking, just the ranks.


Also, it's possible to enable advanced controls foe vehicles, which might make some difference.
HereComesPete
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Post by HereComesPete »

They seem to last until you hit a certain time or xp level, then i get a sound like a cash register and its reset, my rak has reset too, had 2 stripes now none, doesnt bother me really, doesnt take long to get the unlocks back. not far off my tank medal too, dunno what they do though.
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Post by spoodie »

So far I'm not overly impressed.

It's good and I'm keeping my pre-order but it just doesn't feel very Quakey. The visceral nature of other Quakes is missing; the graphics are in a standard Beef style and the sound is as flat as a pancake. During my first game I couldn't even tell if my vehicle's weapon was firing as there's virtually no feedback. I demand more meat with my Quakes.

Having said that the gameplay itself is quite varied, there's lots of toys to play with plenty of strategic possibilities. Although many of the players don't seem to be able to move on from old Quakes and don't do anything other than shoot people. This is proven by me messing about as an engineer for a round, deployed one anti-personnel turret, maybe repairing a couple of things and winning to round without even knowing how I did it.
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Post by Lateralus »

Yeah, Beef players will feel right at home, deploying things, repairing things, mixing vehicles with infantry, whereas those coming from just a Quakesque deathmatch shooter will be a bit overwhelmed I reckon. Even with many hours of Beef under my belt, and starting the game knowing about progressive missions etc, it still took a while to have the faintest idea what was going on. As a result, all it takes is 2 or 3 people to be organised and the map can be won very very quickly (as GDF). I still want to play moar though, and would much rather be doing that than sat at work just now!
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Post by Gunslinger42 »

spoodie wrote:I couldn't even tell if my vehicle's weapon was firing as there's virtually no feedback.
This. The weapon effects/sounds from vehicles suck ass.
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Post by Fear »

Oh cocking hell.

I'm gonna have to buy this, I can feel it in my waters.
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Post by HereComesPete »

spoodie wrote:It's good and I'm keeping my pre-order but it just doesn't feel very Quakey. The visceral nature of other Quakes is missing; the graphics are in a standard Beef style and the sound is as flat as a pancake. During my first game I couldn't even tell if my vehicle's weapon was firing as there's virtually no feedback. I demand more meat with my Quakes.
:above: This. Its quake given a 12 rating, theres no big fuck off explosions that rip limbs, no heavy, ear hurting, crack and thump of cannon, even the nades sound like shit. Playing this game is like listening through a set of in ear headphones that you've left on the table top.

Example of good sound considering its age is fallout tactics, even when those shitty mushroom mine things go off, there is an explosion that makes you jump, I'll run past a nade whith the mistaken impression that no big bang=no damage, and to an extent its right, run and jump and you dont get blown the fuck up, you just get hurt a bit.

Also, the graphic for the titan cannon explosion, it looks like a sprite from duke nukem or rise of the triad, what the fuck is that about.
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Post by Joose »

A lot of the graphics and sound looking shit issues are probably just due to them cranking the quality down to keep the download size as small as possible.

However, I do agree with it not being quakey enough. I admit ive still not played it a lot, but ive got over the initial "WTF is going on" stage and am doing reasonably well at it. Im still stuck with the feeling im playing a slightly shoddy Beef mod, rather than a full release game, though. If I wanted to play a gritty, realistic(ish) team based shooter, I would be playing Beef. If I want to play a more frenetic, action based game, it looks like im going to have to wait for TF2. Too much beefs, not enough quakes.
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Post by Chickenz »

Joose wrote:Im still stuck with the feeling im playing a slightly shoddy Beef mod, rather than a full release game, though.
:above: Is why I have stopped playing, I want to get stuck into the finished version. I don't want to be one of these people moaning about how the B3ta was better at certain things.
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