off topic....Luckily there is UV

[pertsajakilu]

Off topic but still


Few days again i saw in a store Fighting steel game in cheap price. As a fan of old GNB series i bought it. I was thinking that it is modern and enchanged version of GNB.

Also i knew about Fighting steel project at navalwarfare.org so I downloaded the current version of Fighting steel. FSP project is great but game is disappointment.

Game seems to be remake of SSI´s Great Naval Battles ( the first one ) with 3d graphics and simplified game system. There was spotter planes, manual damage control ( which was exciting sub game ), carriers and real campaign. None of that is present in new game. No subs no aircrafts and no land. At the moment it seems to be what if simulator where you put e.g. Bismarck against Iowa and see what happens. ( And then debate about it in forum .

If somebody is thinking of buying Fighting steel one should test it ( if possbile ) before buying. It´s like Quakes naval version.

UV really kicks your nerves when combat is going on and without 3d graphics.

Arto

[crsutton]

Well you are talking about a pretty old (in computer terms) simulation. It was amusing but very buggy. Worse problem is that it was not supported at all by the developer after it was released. Talk about crashes!

Traditionally, wargames are poorly supported by larger companies as they do not generally sell enough to warrant continued support. The games get released and they make a quick buck off sales and then ignore the need for fixes. Of course, some companies are better than others but I have pretty much quit buying wargames from large companies. Of course, most of the major companies no longer produce wargames.

Actually, we gamers really have benefitted from this in that the wargaming genre is now mostly produced by smaller companies such as Matrix-that do not look for mass market sales and support the games much better. You only need to watch this forum to learn that. There has been sort of a revival in computer wargaming in the last few years as a result, with some great products introduced. The internet has really helped in this matter.

Some of the finest games made are not sold in stores these days but are only found on the internet. Aside from Matrix, I can say that there is excellent support from Battlefront-makers of the superb Combat Mission and from HPS Simulations-makers of the Panzer Campaigns system. Check them out if you are not familiar with them.

[Mr.Frag]

It really is SAD, but GNB (the original) was a fantastic game that had it's priorities right!

Nothing that came after came even remotely close to the fun of having gotten loose in the atlantic with a BB and preying on convoys.

There is just something about the true power of one of these monsters that is missed when shifting from a tactical game into a strategy game.

Even the later versions of GNB (I have them all) lost something in moving forward in time.

It represented an entire game in the span of one little naval turn in UV. Somehow we have been short changed in the abstraction as these great works of steel have been made trivial in nature.

[von Murrin]

Sooner or later someone will make an incredibly detailed, fully 3D naval sim that's got it right, preferably along the lines of VG's Tokyo Express. Any day now, I say.
*crosses fingers*

[madflava13]

I used to love playing the GNB series... The anxiety attacks I had when trying to get within Torp range, or damage control when your ship was stuck between both sides can't be matched.

[pertsajakilu]

Originally posted by madflava13
I used to love playing the GNB series... The anxiety attacks I had when trying to get within Torp range, or damage control when your ship was stuck between both sides can't be matched.

Yup..... there you felt that you were fighting for ships life. It was fun to try manage best possible way damage control.

Yesterday i played Fighting steel and FSP 8.0 installed a test scenario where i had 1 german cl + 3 italian destroyers opposed US CA and British q-ship.

5 minutes nightfighting ( 5000 yards ) and 3 dd´s and q-ship were sunk with gunfire only. Surface battles are like quake with ships. Ships are sunk in minutes with gunfire only. And that repeates all the time. Torp firing system is idiotic and "puter" gives you only three different firing anlges.
No excitement at all. It´s now some sort of naval gun simulation. Hopefully it will evolve in future FSP versions.

I tried to find my orginal ( in feel of nostalgia GNB + extra disks but only found two disks.
And it is not any more in Underdogs because some company is selling the game? :-O

Arto