Battlestations Midway

[Shoreguy]

My wife and I love RTS to blow an evening otherwise spent surfing the tube. Currently, she's handing me my ___ in Company of Heroes. Looking forward however, Battlestations Midway looks like our next eveningkiller!

A real time strategy game based on the pacific theater of WWII. Combined with RTS, you can choose to control any of of your hundreds of possible units that can be on the battlefield. Their main site: http://www.battlestations.net/

That didn't really give me a huge warm-fuzzy, but the vid's at

http://media.pc.ign.com/media/664/664548/vids_1.html

did completely!

Looking forward to "Coming Soon" !

[Shoreguy]

Ok...so the demo's out!!!
http://www.battlestationsmidwaydemo.com/
Spent the day playing and I gotta say, if the single map, 8 player demo is an example of the entire game....YEEHAW !!!

Things to note:
If you don't have a Gamespy subscription, you need one
If you don't have a Gamespy Arcade subscription, you need one

The demo is hosted by Gamespy. ...I uninstalled arcade after the 1st time I connected to an internet game...I think it just needed it to create the account.
Watch out for how you enter your Nickname and Unique name....I had some trouble logging into GS for about 30min until I figured it out.

It's a lot of fun...but before you go in, take a look at the Controls....the game is different from BF keyboard layout and it takes a bit to get used to how to build units, launch them at the enemy in command mode....so they auto-attack...then switch to an individual unit to take the wheel yourself

subs rock...but they move slow. you may miss the battle if you're slow
battleships...rock, except when the enemy swarms you with divebombers and torp planes
planes...rock, but watch out for AA

Get organized with the 3 players on your side! go after one target at a time. trying to do 4 individual things gets you 1....dead
Have fun!

[Shoreguy]

Quick Demo...The game launched!
A quick review:
1. No ladder system---there's online rankings, but they're very difficult to obtain decent info from.
2. Demo folks can still play on 'live' servers. Although this will probably change, it gets annoying when you're playing MP, and the last spot in a 'round' is being filled by folks that can't play because they have the demo version instead of retail.
3. VERY few hosted games. Either folks are busy with the solo/lan version, or everyone has my opinion...
4. No CD key. While a good thing for some, for a lot of folks it means that it's that much easier to hack.
5. No Punkbuster. Oneshot kills from across a map are only hours away...
6. Still confused folks that don't know how or can't open proper ports and drop off the game mid-mission, effectively dooming their teammates.
7. Keyboard commands take too long to get good at. Just when you're wanting to retarget another enemy, you click the wrong key and lose your momentum/initiative.
8. Sub on Sub....not. Dive deep and even ramming another sub does no damage. You can 'realistically' only fire torps from firing depth, but but...
9. No modding/creating maps or scenarios....yet. Not concerned, as many games don't launch with this capability.
10. Aircraft have unlimited range/ammo. Bombs/Torps are limited tho. What this means is that the enemy can circle fighters over your airfields for most of the round, without running out of ammo to shoot you down. AA is there, but easily eliminated.
11. Training/Single-player intro's are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay (sorry, it's that long...) way too long and can't be bypassed. "I get it, can I play now?" is what keeps running through my head.
12. No difficulty selection for single-play. The default is rather easy once you get the basics down. Usually this is so they can push you to MP...however, with no PB, its not gonna be long before the 12yr olds learn how to shell your ports from ghost ships on the other side of the map.

I like the 'game' though. It has promise. It's just not something I have great anticipation for 'instant classic' status. The gameplay is good, and if you like the option of commanding or taking the controls, you can certainly get a good number of playable hours out of it. I really think BS:M 's sweetspot will be the home/office lan where you can 'trust' your coworkers / friends to enjoy the game and not exploit. Unfortunately, the single-player neverendingintroductionstothescenario really kills some of the excitement, as well as the lack of difficulty.

For the lan party, go for it...for MP, wait or move on.

Two thumbs.....level.

Anyone else playing yet?