First Impressions

oldbluelight · Post by **oldbluelight** » Sat Jan 05, 2002 4:48 am

Well, I took STUNDG on a little test drive. Think I will like the interface. Seems to be a slower game than the original. Maybe it will speed up as I get better drive techs. Nice graphics overall, but some of the graphics, storms for instance, are just little outlines and are inferior to those in the original game. Ship, planet, explosion and star map graphics are a tremendous improvement. I love the little animation for taking an artifact.

As far as gameplay goes, I have to play deeper in order to see signifigant changes, but economics already look more difficult.

Would have liked a printed manual. DVD case a weird idea for game packaging. Will put mine in jewel case.

2 problems I noticed:

1. When the installation program told me that
I could press cancel iso rebooting, it lied.
It started the install all over again. I just
installed it and rebooted. All OK.
2. Very Minor problem, the Matrix AVI causes a
rendering failure message. I guess I'm
just uneasy seeing the word failure at the
beginning of a game <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

One more minor quibble, the desktop icon for the game is identical to the shareware version. Can't someone come up with a new icon? I still have the shareware version (registered) installed
(it's a real 3am sleepkiller) and I would like to differentiate btw the 2 versions. APE is supposedly going to continue support and development for that version as well.

Well, thanks to Matrix and especially APE. I did a lot of bitching and moaning about shipping problems with my order on another thread, but Matrix worked it out to my satisfaction and I am very happy to finally be playing this game. Sorry about that last email, but I didn't know your warehouse is on the left coast.

Andrew Ewanchyna · Post by **Andrew Ewanchyna** » Sat Jan 05, 2002 5:54 am

And so it begins ...

Ack, that icon. It didn't dawn on me to change it to a nice 3d icon until I installed it from the Matrix CD. It stuck out like a sore thumb.

Not sure why the matrix.avi file doesn't run. Not to worry as it only means missing 10 seconds or so of the Matrix Games logo. I had a problem with blank spaces in directory names but I thought we fixed that (it's a seperate executable called playme.exe, no effect on the game itself). I'll look into it as I'm sure Matrix Games wants you to see their logo movie <img src="wink.gif" border="0"> Granted, I think I'd prefer if it choked on the ApeZone logo move.

Thanks for checking in oldbluelight.

Vaaish · Post by **Vaaish** » Sat Jan 05, 2002 6:05 am

I'm glad you like the upgraded graphics <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

Carentan · Post by **Carentan** » Sat Jan 05, 2002 7:36 am

Andrew and Matrix,

I'm blown away by the fun of this game. No bugs in my install of it... all systems go. Manual not printed, but very good reading just the same.

Outstanding work, gentlemen.

joe

Marc von Martial · Post by **Marc von Martial** » Sat Jan 05, 2002 8:26 pm

Glad you guys like it and glad you like the graphic improvements also. That allways a big motivation to get some positive feedback.

As for the DVD box, well it comes out to get a standard for game packages. A lot of games are allready sold in DVD boxes. We here at Matrix will stick to it as the boxes are much more stable when it comes to oversea and long distance shipping. I allways freaked out when I ordered a game and got a package with a CD and a thousand little plastic pieces <img src="wink.gif" border="0"> . We don´t want our customers to face the same experience.

Thanks again for the feedback.

Andrew Ewanchyna · Post by **Andrew Ewanchyna** » Sat Jan 05, 2002 10:19 pm

I was very impressed with the DVD case. It's got nice proportions, rather like a book. It's actually a more expensive option than a jewel case. And why not just leave it in the CD drive <img src="wink.gif" border="0"> ?

As Marc says, jewel cases are extremely brittle. They make poor shipping material. There is something called Digipacks which are becoming popular for shipping stuff. They're basically a paper jewel case, with the inside made out of plastic, again a more expensive option that a jewel case, but cheaper than a DVD case. DVD cases are really top of the line. Expect to see more of them in stores with games inside.

oldbluelight · Post by **oldbluelight** » Sun Jan 06, 2002 3:03 am

I don't share the unconditional love of DVD cases. Have you ever had a DVD ship in a case and come loose inside the case? They can get quite a few scratches in shipping when this happens. A jewel case simply doesn't have the space inside to bounce around. If this is a trend I don't like it. Not that anyone cares, but my vote is "no" on DVD cases for games.

vmxa1 · Post by **vmxa1** » Sun Jan 06, 2002 11:48 pm

NOt played much yet, but I would like to see the 5x speed have a 10x speed as well for the early part of the game, it takes a long time to send a ship to the far ends of the known universe.

Rhuin · Post by **Rhuin** » Mon Jan 07, 2002 3:45 am

Also do not like Dvd cases, my stunii disk did come loose and got scratched up a bit. No big deal as it still works, but have you every tried puting a dvd case in a tower made for cd's? cant be done.
I also had the rendering error with the matrix.avi movie, but as long as I can still play the game, it also is no big deal.

Otherwise I like the game and the graphics so far, as I am still playing my first game.

Rhuin

oldbluelight · Post by **oldbluelight** » Mon Jan 07, 2002 4:33 am

Has anyone else noticed that there is no option to play the game on the CD's autorun menu?

That is very annoying as I have to shut the autorun menu down and start the game separately. I know I should never have the CD out of the drive <img src="smile.gif" border="0"> , but it has to spend some time in that lovely DVD case.

Seriously, fix that menu in future runs of the game. It's never going away from my CD, but boy
is it irritating.

Is it possible that there is a play option and I am not seeing it?

rich12545 · Post by **rich12545** » Mon Jan 07, 2002 6:27 am

Personally, I find autorun a pain in the *** and have it disabled. If you want to you can get tweakui free from ms to do this and other handy stuff. That way you can put the disk in the coffee cup holder, double click on an icon on your desktop, and play.

oldbluelight · Post by **oldbluelight** » Mon Jan 07, 2002 8:19 am

I have tweakUI and have used it for years. My real concern is that this thing was shipped this
way.

mischiefmaker · Post by **mischiefmaker** » Mon Jan 07, 2002 7:17 pm

Nice try, Mark. I know the real reason for the DVD cases. They're not the more expensive option to preserve the shipped CDs, they're actually a cost-cutting measure!

For those of you who don't know, the whole habit of using DVD cases for games traces back to some guy, maybe he was a game designer, maybe he was a publisher, maybe he was just some poor schmuck who filled out a software registry card. One day he was cleaning out his office as he did every month. About a quarter of the way through his office he realized that he'd already found at least 78 AOL junk mail CDs, 54 of which came in nice DVD cases. It's something I think we all realize at one point or another. But this guy saw the possibilities of this realization and introduced the world to the best way of re-using AOL crap since coasters.

Lemme guess, Mark, all the matrixgames employees bring in their AOL DVD packages from every week and it provides you with enough free packaging to cover three-times your output, right?

Marc von Martial · Post by **Marc von Martial** » Tue Jan 08, 2002 1:15 am

*yawn*

vmxa1 · Post by **vmxa1** » Fri Jan 11, 2002 6:42 am

I suspect the reason to use DVD case is that it is cheaper than making a full size BOX. This is not useful for online sales, but if it flies, it will be a boost for all games ship to EB and such. The shipping cost alone is a savings. I do not mind if they can get them to stop getting loose in the case. That is a very big concern as was mention. I have many DVD movies that will not stay in place. I do prefer the standard PC game box as it has some small mystery as to what may be inside. The DVD case will only have the disk and maybe a piece of paper. This yields another savings as no printed manuals.