Reviews - Metalloid

NeedForSpeed::World
The game is quite interesting to play, but the fact that many (*not* a few) cars are only obtainable by paying *real* money is a downer. Another annoyance is that the client often needs to update the gamedata before you can play on another day. This can be tolorated with small pushes.
However ATM [o8-feb] the launcher is downloading large updates which is *annoying*, even though it was announced. Users who only have the minimal bandwidth requirements for the game, need to be very patient then.
Some updates are visible to gamers beyond a certain level, however anyone else will notice the changes in multiplayer pursuits. Cops are more intense and your group will have less time to complete the tracks.
More review info can be read at the last link at the bottom

Avid NFS gamers, will like how maps of seperate games are connected nicely together, which is great when you do treasure hunting, a game-mode where you wander through the map, collecting diamonds for which you get prizes in the end. If you are smart, you'll play that every day, because streaks can give you very prizes! Make sure to hunt after every 0:00 GMT, which is the time-sync for the game

Analysis of tracelog: the game-launcher is ineffecient in downloads, because the server often rejects requests, which the launcher needs to resent with extra parameters.
Be sure to read the instructions at EA here T.co when your downloader stalls for more that 10 minutes and remove the hashes, which will force it to rebuild them. You won't lose any data that arrived without errors, and the downloader will resume... Also read this En.wikipedia.org
If you need to update your client, you should not forget to select *repair*, otherwize you will purge your valuable download (+2Gigs in normal size)

More info here: Moddb.com

There are .BIG files! What is in NFSWO_COMMUNICATION_LOG.txt?

NProject v2.71 -> preview
I've only played a few missions, but can already say that the mod not only does what it promises, but it happens in a gracefull way. The AI will also knock you of your socks, just like promised, because of the modified attack routines. The launcher works without a hitch, patching was easy and ZeroHour really is better in NProject mode.

I'll post more after some extra missions are played. Make sure you play the moon-map! That is a very weird and nice visual and gaming experience!

Tiberian::Dawn::Redux v1.4beta -> preview

My rating of nine, should be an indicator of what I think of this nice piece of mod work.
The presentation of this total conversion is very good, the explanation of what to do when you want to play other mods is clear (fetch the improved Launcher for v1.3) and since the launcher is a set of batch-routines, you can review the code to see what is done.
The only remark I have (after playing one skrimish map), is that I have to recopy two dirs from my backup-ZeroHour dir, when I want to play my other mods & vanilla ZeroHour, because the launcher doesn't restore those when you exit. Instead the v.1.3 improved launcer puts AIZH.big and Shaders2.big in your ZeroHour folder, which *contain* them.
For total compliance with other mods, I rename those 2 files and restore the original folders when I'm done with the game.
There is a clear warning about the AI scripts in the game, that need to be removed on site, but the waterplane that's also deleted was omitted by the author. It looks like all that's needed for the new launcher of v1.4 of C&C::TDR is a small batch-routine that copies the two dirs which need to be deleted back, just before the main batch-routine exits. Than the Improved Launcer for TDR v1.3 is 'patched' to v1.4 too :)
Regarding the gameplay, I can tell you that the classic cameos look very nice, the sound effects are good and the AI works quite well (I've played in medium mode). You need to orientate yourself in the beginning, if you've only played the first C&C game, but the road to discovery is quite nice, and you'll have a lot of fun with not only building your base, attack- & defense-structures, but also with the scenery. It's a lot of fun to be in this different ENV in ZeroHour

After only one map, I can tell you already that TDR v1.4 in combination with the improved launcher (and a backup of ZeroHour vanilla), guarantees you a great ammount of playing hours.

I'm still playing GTA::SA, away from the storyline, sometimes just to blast away at the "living scenery".
This is a great game to harmlessly blow of some serious steam ;)
The concept, interaction model, theme, and everything else is very good. It's nice that Rock* had the b*lls to make the game it it's initial form.

Generals is really good, Zero Hour makes it even better!

Well executed game, great car-sounds, good gameplay

Short:
Great game

C&C Generals::Zero Hour

A lot can be said about the expansions to Generals.

For now I'll keep it short, just check my score

Destructive::Forces

[feb 2012]
Review update will follow after I've played the last version of this mod.

This is a mod that I downloaded a few days ago. The initial view I have of it, is that a nice ammount of work has also gone into the mod. The only thing I need to do first, is find the mentioned config file to change the view back to the default of ZeroHour, which is zoomed a bit more than Generals, but is what I'm used to.
The presented view, gives you a nice oversight of the battlefield, but at the resolution I'm playing, (1280x960) the soldiers look too small for comfort.

I later fetched the final_bigEditor and changed the parameter suggested by the modder, but that didn't give me the base-camera view I want (the same values of Zero hour). I've found modified_gamedata.zip (25-dec) and used the camera_height value in my big_file (no online play needed). This worked quite well as you'll see in the demo-shots I dropped today (MaxCameraHeight = 500)

I later dropped the mod from the initial 7 to a six because it crashes when I create a marine in US Naval&general mode on one of the default game maps & the speed becomes superfast when I load a saved game to resume. I'll do some one-shot sessions to see what happens then.
Check my "Destructive forces with setup & pre-crash marine" images where you'll see the screen right before the crash. This bug can be reproduced easily.

I've later found a "fix" for the marine-crash. If I don't take the 101 upgrade, the marines can be formed without ZeroHour bombing out (bug circumvention). Because of that, the mod could get upgraded to a seven, after I'd tested the "fix" on more (official) maps

I've just completed a game map with succes, by simply not choosing the Airbone 101 upgrade attribute. The mod could have received an eight, had it not been for the super-speed timing-bug
[...]

I've only seen a little of ShockWave (less than 8 hours), what's certain however is the quality of the work done by the developers.

The presentation is *fantastic!*

Update:
I've seen some more of ShockWave::Zero_Hour the game-play is as exquisite as I had envisioned.

Update2:
I've taken a nice dip in Shockwave, which is the best mod presented I've seen so far. In my screenshot-sequence from today (24-12-2K11), you'll see some nice sequences, where I've performed multiple attacks on the pesky gla, who, even when massive power is used on them, still survives, due to their distributed resistance network.
In *medium* mode, they were already a challenge to defeat for this Schockwave apprentice. That also proves my intital feelings that there will be many hours that can be spend, playing this elegant expansion pack.
The Nuke General needed a good air-presence to swat that enemy.

Update3:
I've now seen significantly more of Shockwave and get surprised when I play the special generals.
The Chinese super-general has a devestating superweapon which will literally "make your earth move" when you are targetted with it. Initially little seems to happen, but afterwards different things happen in a devestating sequence, which will kill anything living in human form (unless they're super-protected). If you combine that attack with the napalm airstrike your enemy sees armageddon happening in front of them. You need to play this mod to see these things!

Update4:
When you've also downloaded the mappack addon, you've given yourself a present of many, many hours of skrimish play, with good AI. All 60+ maps have been tested by the team so quality is guareanteed.

I *really* must complement the development team on this detailed piece of mod-art