Shipped today...

[LtJamesWatts]

Getting really curious here too but take your time so you can get a good general idea of the game first

Now if it is Bulgarian porn, I'd like to get a review too
J/K lol

[Hertston]

Haven't had time to play too much today, and certainly won't over the next couple of days, so I'll reserve comment on gameplay for a while (nothing bad so far, though)

A few general points, though;

Installed without trouble, and seems stable enough, no crashes and such so far. No Starfarce or similar, or online registration.

The to-be-expected dodgy translations from the Russian and less than stellar voice acting (although with that material you can't really blame them). Exception.. the lass who does the in-ship stuff, who is excellent. And sexy as hell. As voices go.

Graphics are 2006 rather than 2009, but work well enough. The odd nice touch, like the dangly Xmas tree in the cockpit - maybe you get fluffy dice on promotion! UI seems well designed, with keyboard shortcuts for everything.

Ship ('or 'flugger'?!) control and dynamics are nicely done. Three options, arcade, inertial arcade and simulation. The first just does doesn't feel right (compare with X3, equally 'arcadey', which does) and the last seems for the hard-core and/or masochistic so I've plumped for inertial arcade so far. It feels much like Evochron Renegades/Legends or Arvoch Conflict, if anyone has played those.

And in answer to my previous, unanswered, question, joystick support seems OK. No troubles with my Saitek X45, and it even recognises my rudder peddles.

Promising so far.

[LtJamesWatts]

Ok thx mate, looking forward to hear more when you had the time to play for a couple of hours

Should have known about the voice acting :/

Keep us also posted please on how the story is, no spoilers of course

[unholydog]

I also got my copy this week through amazon (game version 2.1.0.0, I would appreciate if someone could confirm that this is the latest uk version).

The graphics are actually pretty good (no X3 but then X3 does not allow you to land on planets). For example take the saturn rings (I assume it saturn) which look like a bitmap at first, however fly to it and it develops into proper individual detailed asteroids (actually impressive the first time you do this).

I wish the cockpit textures were a bit more detailed though (hopefully the game can be modded).

The voice acting is as to be expected but so far it really is a good game.

Just ensure you drop the gamma (which for some reason will not keep its setting) and crank up the graphic settings.

[LtJamesWatts]

This is great to hear that someone else already has it too
One thing we can at least be sure of, the game is ready.

I don't care so much about the graphics, meaning that they don't have to look as good as the X series, if they are still ok then that's more than fine for me.

I'm looking especially forward to the planetary landings, really curious how that looks and feels and what exactly can be done on those planets.
Also how good the story is and how much freedom of play you have.

Thx for the tip on the gamma setting, I'll keep that in mind for when I get the game.
Highest settings shouldn't be a problem, got a really good config.

So what we know for now is,

- joysticks are supported
- graphics look good but not top notch
- voice acting isn't of the greatest quality (except for the girl (voice only, character?) in the ship, she has a sexy voice )
- textures can be better on some things
- good impression of the game so far, looks promising
- 3 options, arcade, inertial arcade and simulation
- no online activation and no copy protection
- oh and a Xmas tree in the cockpit

[Hertston]

Originally Posted by unholydog

For example take the saturn rings (I assume it saturn) which look like a bitmap at first, however fly to it and it develops into proper individual detailed asteroids (actually impressive the first time you do this).

Hehe.. I was admiring that just long enough to fly smack into an asteroid.

Originally Posted by LtJamesWatts

Thx for the tip on the gamma setting, I'll keep that in mind for when I get the game.

I haven't had that trouble, so it might be specific to some graphics cards, or a driver issue.

Highest settings shouldn't be a problem, got a really good config.

Shouldn't be a problem for many; space sims are rarely that demanding and this is a lot less so than X3, for example.

First possible 'issue', and a question for unholydog, though. Communications. At the end of the battle that concludes the tutorial mission I called up the messages history to see a load of what was obviously battle cockpit chatter, none of which I either heard or saw as pager messages. It's obviously completely useless after the event, so am I missing something? I'm guessing the original voice chat was in Russian (like the sample when setting the voice volume level) and that was never included (or translated and included) in the English language version(?), but is there really no way of seeing it on screen as it's generated? None of the subtitles or pager options seem to do the trick. It's not essential as the 'objective' messages tell you what you really need to know, but even the text would really add to the atmosphere. After the battle is finished, a couple of portraits appear several times top left, obviously supposedly with messages - but I can't hear them, and those ones don't seem to appear on the pager list. Any ideas, m8?

BTW, request to 1C if any of the devs ever read this board.. if Russian cockpit chat was left out (?) is there any way of enabling it, or making the files available? I'd rather have Russian than silence. Indeed, if the English version ever gets a patch I'd rather like to have a Russian language option throughout with English subtitles.

BTW (again), having had a poke around the install directory there seems an awful lot of configuration settings you can mess about with. Something who is into that sort of thing might have a lot fun.

[unholydog]

Hertston

I have had the same problem with the communication, I thought it was just me. Especially when a face kept popping up, flickered and then went away, I assume it was to tell me something but couldnt understand what.

Like you say it would be nice to get some feedback from the developers.

[Csimbi]

Originally Posted by LtJamesWatts

So what we know for now is,

- joysticks are supported
- graphics look good but not top notch
- voice acting isn't of the greatest quality (except for the girl (voice only, character?) in the ship, she has a sexy voice )
- textures can be better on some things
- good impression of the game so far, looks promising
- 3 options, arcade, inertial arcade and simulation
- no online activation and no copy protection
- oh and a Xmas tree in the cockpit

Nothing that a good modder would not be able to fix. This is good news, thanks.