First impressions of TC:E 0.49
Written by guerilla (27 Oct 2006 - 10:26
)
It was Friday, September the 29th in the year 2006! The time: 18.00 GMT to be exactly. The moment of the release of the long awaited version 0.49 of our beloved game True Combat Elite. As you probably read on our homepage we lost interest in TC:E for a long time ago. In the end of last summer we picked it up and played some 0.48 funwars but not with the motivation we used to have. Until 0.49 came out! Did it feed our expectations? Read on...
It was exactly 4 weeks ago when the new version was released. A lot of BiMbo's were kinda curious and installed or updated their TC:E to 0.49. Let's roll!
First impression? Ough.. that needs some adaption! The weapons behave completely different. The MP5 became the sniper's choice and the MAC10 became not only spray and pray but spray and pray and win. Our trick of the trade: using single shot a lot for long distance shooting, became worthless. I hope they do something about it in the next patch.
GRAPHICS
Well, they did a good job in my opinion. The new maps look rich and nice. It's almost unbelievable what they can do with the ET engine (remember: just a modified Quake3 engine!). They implemented HDR lightning and some other nice stuff. It' s a pity for them I play with a 'winners config': for nice graphics I'll go to the cinema, ingame it's hardcore gaming that count ;)
A heavily discussed new feature is the letterbox screensize. TC:E used to be in 4:3 but since 0.49 the only 'choice' left is 16:9. Cool for those widescreen owners but the majority still bears 4:3. In the developers blog on the TCE site we can read they just wanted to implement this cool feature and hoped the community would like it. They were a bit surprised with the arousal it created ;)
MAPS
The maps had some major upgrades. In general they all were updated with a lot of shortcuts. The specops really have to defend more close to the objectives this time.
Northport got a nice BiM barn and a vietcong style network of tunnels. In the end the map improved imho. The real 2 chokepoints have been faded away.
Hideout is gona: I'm glad.
Village got some nice spots to climb on (another new feature: free climbing) and did improve overall.
Railhouse used to be our favourite clanwar map. We basicly have to write our tactics all over again but it looks like a nice map again.
Snow. Opionions were diverse on this one in the old version. The new version is still not astonishing. Nice ambiance, nice textures but boy, do I hate those easy quickplant.. It's just a clash in the middle. Nice for BC, not for OBJ.
Stadtrand is a German map based in Hamburg. I've been there on a business trip a few times and I don't recognize it ;). A map with potential. Industrial, nice chokepoints which aren't irritating. Only the ROE on both sides suck.
Rijnmond Delta Ijmuiden is a Dutch map, like me (Dutch that is, not a map). It used to be a custom map in 0.48 and they made it official now. The map is pretty balanced and shows some potential. Keep an eye on it!
Villa beta is the first custom map and was released yesterday. Although a bit dull at the moment in terms of detail it's a real close combat map. Cool the mappers picked the art of mapping up again in 0.49 while your old 0.48 maps arent directly playable in 0.49 because of the difference in scale.
CONCLUSION
I even played some rounds of Capture the Flag, the new game mode. As long the flags are placed directly next to the spawns and this ROE is used I'm not gonna play it. To get the enemy flag one has to rush through their spawn while they are fully protected with ROE. Not my cup of thea!
Team Terminator announced the release of a little patch in the upcoming weeks. Read Coroners blog entry here.
So far, I like it!
For BiM and TCE 0.49? We are on public servers like Neelix, Heroes, Eclipse, Gonzos and our own BiM servers almost every night. We really have to get used to the new version. Not only because of the changes but we didn't play a lot in the months before. We even played our first funwar since at least half a year last week. The adrealine rush entering our system we did welcome again but oh my god, do we have to practice :)
BiM vs SeF, railhouse, 3-7, GG!
Hope to see you all on the servers and keep supporting this game folks!
