Meng. I tried Hell Let Loose a while back in some free period. I simply have too much on my plate with Post Scriptum. So I try to stay away from HLL because it will just be another FPS which I rarely play. I played Post Scriptum last night, had a good commander and really enjoyed it. There are a ridiculous amount of full servers in post scriptum atm (pages). So that's good.
However I just read some of your HLL posts and am curious as to exactly what the differences are.
I'd like to know that I chose the most realistic new ww2 shooter. Red Orchestra 2 and Rising Storm 2 were my previous go tos. Now I try to stick to post Scriptum, which still has another chapter to release on the devs timeline.
Can you advise exactly what it is that HLL does better? It does seem to be more popular than Post Scriptum when their is not a free weekend for PS as there is now.
I think basically Post Scriptum is a better simulation -- for example, the full ballistics of rifle bullets are done in PS and not in HLL. PS has mortars and HLL does not. This even extends into the visual field where in Ps you can see a long, long way, but in HLL you can't. PS has trucks and HLL does not...the better simulation side of PS is pretty clear no matter how you look at it. So HLL is definitely in the Arcade direction -- eg, well -- no mortars or trucks. So what's good about HLL? It's more atmospheric -- even literally, the air is thick and you can't see far without binoculars or sights. Which i guess leads one to ask again -- so what's good about HLL? I think what's good is that it is aimed at a point midway between simulation and arcade. Maybe a little closer to the simulation end in many superficial ways, but way down deep its has the good things about an arcade approach (relatively fast action. some customization, some "advancement") without most of the bad things about arcade games ( lots of scoring verbiage on the screen, weapons that glow, terrain that makes no sense, scales that are absurd etc. etc.). HLL is shamelessly gamey in some good ways -- the US is getting the Easy 8 Sherman "for extra fuel points" -- I guess if those turn up in Normandy scenarios that will be pretty shameless.
Ultimately of course, I just like HLL for a pile of irrational "reasons" -- smaller maps full of tasteful bits of wreckage -- horrible dead bodies -- absurd bombing runs, the good old Thompson SMG which I have liked since battlefield 1942, the M1 (even with hit scan is a convincing weapon), the grenades work better for me etc. etc. -- oh -- tiny "units" the SL is really a corporal called an "officer" and so on...
So, again, on the face of it, HLL has little to recommend it -- especially versus PS -- as a simulation and even more strangely, HLL is defined more by what it isn't (not PS, not exactly an arcade WWII shooter, slightly blood-thirsty rather than slightly sentimental) but also by what seem to be its gamey ancestors: Battlefield 42 and Red Orchestra (particularly the Darkest Hour mod). It might be defined as an attempt to approach the simulation space from a gamey side rather than an attempt to approach a game from the simulation side ( PS).
I guess I should try again to just list the things I like:
1) its got US troops in Normandy
2) Its trying to expand and go on modifying itself (adding maps and map aids and vehicles and loadouts for example)
3) the landscaping is interesting
4) the maps are around half the size of PS maps
5) the graphics are more atmospheric
6) the "squads" (called units) are 6-man fire teams
7) so the SL ("officer" = corporal) role is pretty good
there is some attempt at some kind of atmospheric realism (location, weapons etc.)
And I guess that's it!
