First of all, a big thanks to all the Saga Team who has done a fantastic job. This mod IS the best WC game I ever played (on pair with WC3) and without doubt the BEST FS mod out there at the moment (the critics/attacks I have been reading on the Hard Light Forums are proof that someone/many other FS modders are pissed/jelous about this great mod :-P)
I must say all those years were worth waiting. Every single day!
The end result shows the amount of love the team put into their "baby" and it has grown to be the best FS mod out there. No doubt in my mind :-)
1) The story is brilliantly intertwined with the WC3 era.
2) The main character is a good example of a newbie thrown into the battle (he is not supposed to be the new Blair, nor a Wing commander, he is a new recruit on his first battle after the academy).
3) The voice acting is great (consiering it's a mod, I could say it's fantastic, very professional). The "cameo" apperance of the victory characters (Blair, Maniac,..) brought a tear to my eyes. Really catapulted me 20 years back in time :-)
4) The ship models are B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L. I was doing many fly-bys of capital ships after every mission, expecially in the last 10 missions when the combat fleet becomes really BIG (4 carriers with support ships!!!). The confed starbase was JAWDROPPING when I first saw it.
5) The mission lenght is perfect, I personaly love that they are not 5 minute-deals. I love the chatter between pilots and the mission pacing was near perfect. The difficulty level vas just right (I don't play on the hardest setting thow)
6) The game is very polished. I found only a few small bugs here and there (nothing a future patch couldn't solve) but the game run like butter, I didn't experience a single problem ingame. Not a single one. And I played on my laptop (I5, 4gb ram, ATI 5650m 1gb, Win7 64bit).
7) The quality and amount of MOVIES and ANIMATIONS you put ingame and as cutscenes is staggering. It really felt like a true WC3 game.
The only (small) problem I have is related to my onboard Realtek soundcard. I'm pretty sure it doesn't support hardware acceleration of sound (can chose only software audio) and because of this, every time a pilot speaks ingame, I get a few millisecond of shuttering (even when the game is at 60fps). This happens even with the last drivers (Realtek R2.68). Also, with ATI Catalyst 12.3 I can't turn on Antialiasing (corrupts the menu screens and sometimes hangs WC saga, but I can still access windows. I know both problems are already known to the Saga Team.
Final score: 98/100
A huge (Kilrathi) hug to all the Saga Team! Now go get some rest, you deserve it :-D