Matrix Games Forums

Well I'm forty. The trouble with being there is that we will no longer be using our imaginations which for me can be a big part of gaming ever since playing Army at school. The graphics in FPS games to and are mind blowing and I'm sure ten of fifteen years ago we dreamed of graphics like these, but have they enhanced gaming? Not really because you soon get used to them and they loose the WOW factor pretty quickly and nothing is left as you don't use your imagination. It's similar to the novel and the major Hollywood film, films very rarely live up to books no matter how great they look because the imagination is always better. Finally a game that was that detailed and graphic would I feel become very unwieldy in trying to play it, also it would feel more like directing a film than playing a game maybe.

I just have a feeling that life like graphics in the end wont add to the wargaming experience, I think it's all about gameplay and detail with less and less abstraction.Aslong as I'm getting feedback from my troops about the situation in some form and in as much detail as I want then thats enough as I said my imagination can then do the rest without the need for someone else's imagination showing it to me graphically. For an FPS game though it is great I suppose but not really for a wargame, again because to me it would end up feeling like I was directing a film rather than playing a game. The game you describe sounds more like a hyper realistic FPS than a tactical wargame, which granted would work and sounds great, I 'd buy it in an instant. Though most Commanders above coy level where behind the lines looking at maps etc.

I have read what you don't like in CMBN and what you want graphically and put them together we either have as said a very realistic FPS (actually the closest i can think of that resembles what you want is ARMA 2 when you get to control squads and above, which I hated as it felt to unwieldy, maybe needs to be better implemented or voice commands would solve the issues I had with it)or as I've said a few times (I'm repeating myself here i think alittle to often ) or it would feel more like directing a War Film.

As for older men playing games I expect they did, things like cards and chess I reckon have been played alot by the older generation for many years especially once fitness levels drop so you can't partake in sports and the like and toy soldiers have been around for along time, was it HG Wells that wrote some rules along time ago?

I apologise for the amount of times I repeated myself in this post. Sometimes I get carried away in my replies.

Yes, I mean behind the lines, with maps etc. So i meant something like BFTB, but with a map. I was half joking really. I meant like a sci-fi movie. You put on a headset and you're there, with your staff and your map and sidearm etc. Then you do the scenario in that role. Not an FPS thing, unless arty comes down on you or your command post is overrun, but that would be exceptional, I guess. Just dreaming.

I wholly agree about graphics, of course, and have said this here before. That's one of the great things about this game - that you have to use your imagination, that there's space to do that. Graphics - as in nearly every game out there that has concentrated on graphics rather than AI - add nothing. And you're right, twenty years ago, we really did dream about that. And here it is and it means very little. I remember playing a mac game (back wehen I had a mac) called 'Hellcat', I think. The graphics were shocking (to us now), but it was enough to cue your imagination and brain in and it felt very real, like flying a Hellcat!!! That's gone though. Once the bar moves you can't just go back and pretend those graphics work.

With books and films I'm afraid it's worse than you say. Books just do not get written now that are like the books that were written when I was younger, or for our parents. The entire form has been overwhelmed by structures inherited from film and TV, in pacing, plot and character. The amazing thing about the novel form is the access it can give (which other forms cannot) to an internal perspective, yet the way books are written these days (including my own, I'm sorry to say) is like they're increasingly extended scripts. It's what people want. I myself find it very hard to read Dickens now, or Elliot, or anything in the classical novel form. I expect more speed, less depth, more action etc, more manageable chunks of drama. The books my kids (four and six) read are even worse and it shows in what they can absorb - kids books (and there are so many more of them than when I was little) are becoming more and more like a script for an FPS game.

So. Everything is getting worse, it seems. That's a surprise....

Well, certainly didn't want to generate dispute between defenders of the hex style war games and the most curren ones, btfb as is the case...
I not consider myself neither a consummate startegist nor a wargame geek per se. During the years i had the opportunity to read many books
of authors that many of you might consider " knowledgeable" in the art of war.., Beavor, Atkinson, Manstein..., and all in all i can tell that
you can actually learn a lot by reading the plethora of books avaiable.

i've read your posts and my intention was to obtain the opinion of players with far more experience than me in wargames, and I do think that my question
has been well answered.

Thx[:)]

And By the way, i'll buy BFTB this afternoon and enjoy every bit of this wonderful strategist tool...

Good news...enjoy.

Well Phoenix and myself were really singing from the same hymn sheet there;)

Yes. I think it was a joint gripe, rather than a dispute....

Enjoy the game. There's lots of layers to it. If you force yourself (as I have to) to play on the slowest setting and click everything to get as much info as possible then it can be a really detailed game. Then you can really decide properly how much you want to intervene, once you've got your master plan in full swing...

Hofen is a good scenario to start with, I think. There's quite a few AARs in the section here to help you get the most from it.