Comments on: ETQW Released, Dated For Steam

By: Psychopomp

Psychopomp — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 04:47:25 +0000

That’s dedication

By: lePooch

lePooch — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 04:00:11 +0000

Holy crap.. I was wondering why this came up on the comments feed. Did you specifically BOOKMARK this opinion and then return to it today to go “HAHA IN YOUR FACE GAMES JOURNALIST!!”

This made my day.

By: Idle Threats and Bad Poetry

Idle Threats and Bad Poetry — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:03:43 +0000

Greetings, Jim! I come from the FUTURE! BEWARE! BEWARE! H1N1! Economic crisis! And ET:QW will be mostly forgotten while TF2 makes news, albeit for absurd reasons!

By: Seniath

Seniath — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 20:36:15 +0000

Just spent an hour or so, took part in the African and US campaigns. Overall, am quite impressed, there seems to be a lot of depth here, and I’ve only just scratched the surface. The Obliterator, I must say, is very fun. But when isn’t blowing shit up fun?

By: Homunculus

Homunculus — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 18:54:17 +0000

Not had the time to try this yet. How does it compare to Planetside, which never failed to make me feel like part of an ongoing BIG WAR effort?

By: Thelps

Thelps — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 16:05:18 +0000

Spirit7 nailed ET:QW’s unique appeal, its speed. Yes, other games (TF2!) are just as fast but aren’t the kind of objective based, large-scale FPSes that ET:QW is mainly competing with, primarily the BF franchise. Being able to operate tactically, as a unit, across LARGE distances, a la Quake Wars, and doing so at what is basically Quake or UT speeds (ok, a LITTLE slower) is a pretty special blend, if you ask me. Seems to bridge the gap between the tactically minded, cover-hugging BF player, and the ADD suffering twitch maniacs from vanilla Quake or UT deathmatch.

By: arqueturus

arqueturus — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 15:04:04 +0000

I had a go on the demo and didn’t have a clue what to do :(

Seems far too complex and… dull looking?

I’ll give it another go at some point.

By: Robin

Robin — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 13:51:32 +0000

The HUD is overwhelming at first, but it’s a game that really does need to throw a lot of information at you to play effectively.

The persistent ranking system (http://stats.enemyterritory.com/) is fascinating to browse (it seems most players quickly gravitate towards specific classes and vehicles) and adds to the already horribly addictive nature of the game.

I’ve never played an ‘outdoor’ shooter as deep or as well implemented as ETQW, but I’m sure Martin Coxall will be along again to point out that we’re all wrong and it is, in fact, shoddy! Because, erm, is just is. Right.

By: spirit7

spirit7 — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 13:34:59 +0000

I thought the demo was excellent. It was refreshing to have a FAST outdoor, team-based shooter – my main problem with the BF series was that they always seemed too slow.

I perhaps do agree that it’s a bit daunting to start off with, but given time it really is enthralling. The class balance in particular seems superb thus far.

My retail copy has been dispatched!!

By: The_B

The_B — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 12:20:13 +0000

In relation to the what key to press problem, the G prompt has come up every time for me so far, so I’ve not personally had a problem.

I am going to be a hippy and say that both games are indeed awesome and have their place. I will say though that – as it should be – QW is definitely an ET game and not say, TF or BF. Going into it with an ET mindset I felt was helpful to me, and I can see me playing it more than I did say, BF2142.

By: Thelps

Thelps — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 11:22:07 +0000

My main concern, as mentioned by Marco M. is that the game doesn’t seem to lend itself too well to public play. Too often everyone’s running around as one class, fighting over the vehicles, or getting completely lost and running miles from the objective. This isn’t so much a flaw of the game itself, its complexity and depth is one of its strong points, but players on a public server really seem completely clueless, much more so than my experience with, say, the Battlefield games, or the TF2 demo (which is almost the complete opposite, extremely well suited to public server play).

Still though, ET:QW is a truly excellent game. I’ll gladly lacerate the hell out of anyone on this site if a RPS game ever comes to reality.

By: Marco M.

Marco M. — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 10:59:32 +0000

A certain reliance on overlays, HUD and map (with its symbols and instructions) is the direct consequence of the game being played on a much bigger battlefield than Team Fortress 2.
You can provide direct visual feedback at a character level only when the game is played for the most part at close range, like in TF2, not when you deal with objects that can be a few hundreds meters away. Average distances between players and objectives is something that affect various aspects of the game, like for instance automatic, event-driven voice messages, which are present in Quake Wars too, but can’t have the same impact they have in Valve’s game.

ET:QW is a bit more complex in terms of mechanics too, with multiple objectives being carried on at the same time, so the tools used need to reflect a certain degree of that complexity to be effective.
Honestly, I don’t have any recent experience of class-based, objective oriented games to be able to say if things have been done better already, but coming from the Tribes world, the first impression of the QW demo has been of a game that guided you a lot in what you were supposed to be doing (and felt a bit restrictive at times, from a triber perspective).

Of course, this doesn’t mean that some people may not prefer the immediate visual feedback and small scale combat of Team Fortress 2 over the more abstract information tools and large battlefields of Quake Wars.