E3 Preview

[edyzmedieval]

Promising. Although IGN seemed somewhat reserved, but I think it's just me...

[Phog_of_War]

Looks great. I'd love to see some system requirements. I fear dropping the cash on a new computer because I have to have this game.

I'm an addict.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

At least we know the release date:

The game will launch next year.

[hoom]

Some interesting stuff there.
DX11, tessellation & up to 300 dynamic lights, with surfaces being affected by weather eg going shiny wet in rain.

On the down side they talk about fire arrows as research. Research seems a wrong concept in this period.
I take that as we can expect a campaign map with other Empire type gameplay too & that is disappointing.

[darius_d]

yaaawn. wake me up when they say something beyond graphics, like AI or "character pogression".

[Gregoshi]

yaaawn. wake me up when they say something beyond graphics, like AI or "character pogression".

The last several sentences addressed AI issues. They discussed both campaign AI (passive faction issues) and battle AI (improved situation recognition and "thinking" alternative tactics in unclear situations).

I agree with hoom on the fire arrow "research". "Hmmm, what if we lit up the arrows before we fire them?" "Brilliant idea Q-ito! The daimyo's koku has been well spent!"

I'd like to have heard a little more detail on the battle demo. "...our first company's morale flagged and eventually broke..." Does "eventually" mean seconds (like RTW) or tens of seconds (STW/MTW)? It sounded like a rather short demo, but did it feel like STW or RTW?

Interesting things in the E3 preview. I will be interested to hear impressions from several different sources to get a better overall feel of the game at this early stage.

[Nobunaga]

I really hope that CA can deliver this time around ... Failing will affect CA's reputation greatly.

[darius_d]

The last several sentences addressed AI issues. They discussed both campaign AI (passive faction issues) and battle AI (improved situation recognition and "thinking" alternative tactics in unclear situations).

You're right. I think they have a challenge to match battle quality (in terms of challenge) to be on par with Shogun 1. At least they have all the code and parameters.

[Barkhorn1x]

I will be interested to hear impressions from several different sources to get a better overall feel of the game at this early stage.

This demo sounds exactly like the IGN preview - so they must have been watching the same one. And this may indicate that they were watching a scripted presentation. Not that this really means anything at this early stage. Perhaps later build demos will allow the reviewers to comment on the similarities/differences between STW and STW2. But we know these gaming sites are much too fan boish and overawed by eye candy to give anyone a decent overview of what is truly important - game play.

I am cautiously optomistic here as at least CA is saying the right things:
- More tightly focused
- Less units, more differentiation
- Deeper cultural presentation
- Improved Strat and Tac AI ***


***Caveat = CA has said this for every game since RTW - and have really failed to deliver. Can we trust them this time?