Bought It - First Impressions

[Adam Parker]

Thanks to McGlu in posting his Scenario Listings thread here, I finally got to learn what this game is about. McGlu, once again the devs and publisher owe you a debt of gratitude and should send you a gift voucher of some sort for taking the time in posting.

So I just bought the game - fully aware of possible AI bugs and graphics issues. Here are my first impressions:

1. Purchase - Used the digital download service. For the first time ever with Matrix after my transaction went through, Digital River let me down. There is a well highlighted thread here about server issues. I was able to resolve the issue by writing my order number down, clearing my cache and finding my download in Find My Order. Follow the link Erik has posted there if this is an issue for you. That done, the game downloaded rapid fire, cable internet ~15 minutes, 200MB total.

2. Installation - Without a hitch. Though I wish Matrix would update the saved file path automatically once an alteration is chosen.

3. First Load - Excellent. Quick intro screens, lovely art - by Matrix's Marc S? Very intuitive front end. The only thing that didn't fit right was the scenario selection routine. Click a beatiful arrow near the year showing on screen and you're taken to a Windows-looking file selection list. Not as bad as The Operational Art of War's but a simple list of scenarios on the front screen would have been better. However, given experience in these things, I saw 1805, double clicked it and the scenario opened easily.

4. Graphics - I work on a 20 inch Samsung 204B at 1600 x 1200 with a high-end nVidia 8800 GeForce GTX. The game looks gorgeous! No scaling issues at all. The thing is just crisp clear. Brilliantly, the designers included wheel mouse zoom. The game scrolls fine with 4GB Ram - hope you need less! I may have some comments about the color white chosen for city name labels - but again kudos for at least putting them on screen, unlike some recent games. That done, the game offers educational value.

5. Initial Game Play - Without reading a word of the rules I selected the French to play as part of a big campaign and found it extremely intuitive to move forces, intitiate battle and go on the offensive. Land and sea. In some of the on screen icons, I saw flashes of Panzer General come back to me. Things look intuitive and I'll post more on this later. Very quick turn executions times.

6. Initial AI Impression - The AI attacked, showed aggression at sea and died well! I've yet to play enough to test the extent of the fixing needed and promised by the devs here.

7. Tools Showing Promise - Nice ~50 page PDF rulebook doesn't look to crammed with verbiage, a tutorial option shows on the front screen and the scenario list looks very impressive. More on these to come.

So that's it. Some sloppy marketing and a dearth of posts from hesistant buyers almost killed this game for me. A simple list of what this game is about by a customer saved it. There are just no good Nap PC games on the market imo. I'm willing to wait for the devs with a patch and in the meantime learn more about the guts of this one. I hope this game does become "Panzer General for the Emperor". Our hobby needs it.

Happy gaming,
Adam.

(Edit: Cleaned up some typos)

[cdbeck]

Good to see some impressions, finally! I was kicking this one around for a bit now and may still keep it on the table. Particularly because I am now in La France and Toulon is relatively nearby (as is Corsica), I can feel Napoleon's call!

SoM