With the release of 8800 Vista drivers I installed and played a bit of GS over the last three days.
- Graphics
Its looking quite beautiful. High poly ship models. The capital class seem much larger now. Specular and bump mapping really add to the depth. Explosions and missile trails received a bit of attention. When your in atmospheric flight you'll notice a much prettier horizon effect. Planets have much higher resolution texture maps and look
much improved. Alliance Fighters now feature unique 3D cockpits but they're not functional and not as detailed as one might have hoped for. They would be, however, wonderful combined with TrackIR as you need a c. to orient yourself. My version is incompatible with GS and so I can't comment on it. In all GS looks more modern and less indie. You could punch it up a bit more if you wanted to... but it looks quite good as it is.
- Sound
GS has full voice overs for radio traffic, intel reports, and in engine cutscenes. For the most part they are quite competent (which was a bit of a surprise... VA is usually the first casualty). The production of the clips is a bit simple though. You'll get an actor reading his lines (or Milo
) rather than an actor reading his lines with bit and pieces layered in to recreate lets say... a press briefing. I've found it very nice to just listen for Control (your AWACs) response rather than read the small print at the top of the screen.
- Gameplay
Much the same as SS 4.0. Milo said he has rebalanced at least the first campaign but I'm not far enough in to give an opinion. He also worked on the mission templates for the dynamic campaign. Again not noticing to much yet. Lastly the difficulty levels were tweaked... I'm currently on medium and it seems pretty competent. Once I've completed this campaign I'll try it again on hard and see how it goes. Easy is supposed to be easier and hard harder.
- Conclusions
Milo makes a game I like quite well. The addition of cutscenes really adds to the narrative. Its a prettier game this time around with most of bugs rounded out. A demo is in the pipe... if you like space sims (with an emphasis here on Sim Lite) you should check it out.
