Squad

[Toonces]

I wasn't missing them, to be honest.  While the map(s) I played on (not sure if it was the same map twice, or two maps) were fairly large, it wasn't nearly as much of a hassle to run to the target as I thought it would be. 

I'll be curious to see how they change the dynamics of the game.  I know in KotH they can completely break the game if you have good players in jets sniping the shit out of everyone trying to get into the capture zone.

If you're completely happy with ARMA 3 right now I don't really know that this game brings enough new to justify $40.  For myself, I have room in my library for another FPS, but I seem to spend a lot of time playing MP shooters in my free time because they're easy to get into and out of without too much stress.

[Toonces]

One of the front page reviews on Steam has a guy saying it made him feel like he was back in Afghanistan again.  The review was pretty articulate.

Having never been to Afghanistan, nor been shot at, I can't really comment on how "realistic" the game is. 

[Jarhead0331]

One of the front page reviews on Steam has a guy saying it made him feel like he was back in Afghanistan again.  The review was pretty articulate.

Having never been to Afghanistan, nor been shot at, I can't really comment on how "realistic" the game is.

I haven't been to Afghanistan either, but I find it difficult to believe that any video game could "make someone feel like" they are back in the suck again. Yes, media, such as movies, books, games, etc. can certainly generate intense emotions and memories, but "making you feel like you're there"? No way. I call bullshit.

I have commented on military themed games and authenticity at great length. Several games definitely model certain aspects of combat, marksmanship, fieldcraft, etc. well, but never have I felt like I was not playing a game, or that I was back in 29 Palms. You just can't recreate the adrenaline, fatigue, fear/anxiety, pain, frustration, annoyance, etc. of military life on a 27" monitor. 

[Father Ted]

This is a tough one IMO.  I think that games could give a flavour of something one has experienced - not put you back there - but certainly bring back thought-processes and emotions.  I'm fervently grateful that I never had to go to war, but there are other things I've done (on a hugely more trivial level) IRL which I have subsequently done virtually and caught myself feeling the same things whilst playing the game.  Anyway, that's by the by.

What I really wanted to say was please do not make it the game's fault that someone has posted a possibly fanciful review.

[Toonces]

^ Fair enough, Jarhead.  FWIW, I didn't feel like I was in Afghanistan- I felt like I was playing a video game using the Unreal engine which always makes me feel a bit barfy after about an hour or so.  I had to turn it off after the last round as I can feel a headache and nausea coming on.  I hope this doesn't keep happening.

I'm going to give Project Reality a try.  Be curious to see how the two match up.

[IronX]

Do you get nauseated with other shooters? I find I get this way initially, but after playing them for a while I get somewhat used to it.

[Jarhead0331]

^ Fair enough, Jarhead.  FWIW, I didn't feel like I was in Afghanistan- I felt like I was playing a video game using the Unreal engine which always makes me feel a bit barfy after about an hour or so.  I had to turn it off after the last round as I can feel a headache and nausea coming on.  I hope this doesn't keep happening.

I'm going to give Project Reality a try.  Be curious to see how the two match up.

I like Project Reality. I did find the combat to be fairly intense...again, for a game. Lots of maps, lots of units, lots of nationalities and gear. Its pretty impressive what they accomplished on the BF2 engine.

[Nefaro]

^ Fair enough, Jarhead.  FWIW, I didn't feel like I was in Afghanistan- I felt like I was playing a video game using the Unreal engine which always makes me feel a bit barfy after about an hour or so.  I had to turn it off after the last round as I can feel a headache and nausea coming on.  I hope this doesn't keep happening.

Aww damn.

Forgot about the Unreal engine side effects.  The vast majority of Unreal-based games do this to me also.   >:(   

I think it's a result of the way they shoehorned widescreen view into an old engine that didn't originally support widescreen.  Makes the peripheral view of the ground & scenery look rather off to your brain when the view is moving.

May be a deal-breaker if that's the case, although I recall one or two derivatives that weren't too bad.  That's a small percentage though.

[Toonces]

Do you get nauseated with other shooters? I find I get this way initially, but after playing them for a while I get somewhat used to it.

It's hit or miss.  It seems to happen more with Unreal-engine games, but I could be wrong on that.  Something about the way the screen scrolls around when looking around gets to me.

Regardless, I'm thinking of requesting a refund- a first for me.  The more I think about it, the more I think this game isn't really scratching any itches that aren't scratched by other games I have already.  I think ARMA 3 KotH is good enough for now, and I can always hit up some clan play if I really need to get my teamwork on. 

Still thinking on this...I'm at 2 hours playtime, so I kind of have to make my decision based on my earlier gameplay.

[Toonces]

Alright, so I played ARMA 3 KotH, Squad, and Project Reality in a row tonight to get the pros and cons of each. 

For ARMA 3, all of the 120 person KotH servers were full so I ended up on a 59/80 server.  59 people just isn't enough to populate a KotH server.  Also, there was no chatter whatsoever on the radios.  ARMA 3's internal comms suite sucks (at least in KotH) so it's not unusual for there to be light chatter, but this was dead silence.  I lone wolfed for a while but bored fairly rapidly.

Next up was Squad.  I should say, I tried to play Squad.  There are about 8-10 72 person servers, but only about 4 in the U.S.  All of them were full.  There were a few European servers that were open, but relatively lightly populated.  So far I'm finding a lot of frustration getting into online matches; there never seems to be any open, well-populated servers.  Also, I've yet to see a server bigger than 72 people.  So in reality I didn't actually get any gameplay in.

Finally I booted up Project Reality.  This was my first time in the game, complete and utter novice.  I had a lot of difficulty getting my configuration to stick, which has to do with Windows 10 not allowing me to remove read-only permissions on the PR folder.  As a result, I played the game on medium graphics, so take my comments on that with a grain of salt.  Overall, it looked ok but nowhere near as good as Squad.  Again, I really need to try it with the graphics cranked to make a fair comparison.  They seemed on par with Red Orchestra 2 at medium settings, maybe a touch worse.  However, the gameplay was utterly amazing and I am itching to learn more about the game now.  I spawned into an open squad as a rifleman and clearly all of these guys knew what the hell they were doing.  We were on the Grozny map and as soon as I got on I let them know I was brand new.  They were pretty patient with me, and since I've played some FPS's before I could figure out a lot of it intuitively.  What struck me was just how much these guys talked- it was non-stop and very professional.  Surprising, really, as I've never been in a game where the players were so articulate about calling out where friendlies and enemies are, and describing the plan we were going to execute.  I played for about 2 hours, had one kill (a teamkill), and got shot myself twice.  There was a lot of maneuvering, suppressing fire, and "doing stuff" besides shooting enemies in CQ fighting. 

I'm kind of torn, because I want to like Squad, and I think if I could actually get on a server and play it some more I could really enjoy it.  But the lack of servers is a real bummer.  The PR servers were running at or over 120 people, I think we had something like 50 v 60 during my match, and there was a lot going on. 

I need to spend more time with PR, but I think my final assessment, given my limited time with PR, is that of the three games I want to invest a lot more time learning PR.  That was some seriously hardcore gameplay and I'm eager to do some more of it.  When Squad matures a bit, gets more and bigger servers, and the community develops some, I think it will complement PR nicely.  For now, if you're sitting on the fence, I think PR will give you everything Squad does and more, for free, at the expense of some graphical fidelity. 

[Toonces]

If you haven't tried Project Reality online yet, I encourage you to look into it.  Before you log on, though, take some time to browse the noobie welcome thread on their forums and read the manual.  There are some courtesies they expect you to follow on the servers, like not entering vehicles if you're not in the squad, that aren't necessarily intuitive coming from ARMA, among other things. 

[jomni]

There is more communication in Cooperative Invade and Annex ARMA3 servers than KotH

[Toonces]

I usually sort the servers by number of players and I never see open COOP anywhere near the top.  It's all KotH, RPG, and Sandbox.

What servers rae you playing on, Jomni?

[Hofstadter]

I actually really enjoy squad. I could never get into PR, it felt too clunky or me

[Trooperc7]

I found that PR really comes together when you have a good squad leader and a good commander!