The game has a huge learning curve, this isn't a battlefield style run and gun game. It requires skill and patience, and every kill you make is very rewarding. Personally it took me 3 separate trials before I subscribed to the game and I usually do it on and off in 3 month blocks. I spend most of my time flying fighters and if you are into games like IL2 you will be at home here.
Some of the great things about this game are:
- Huge range of vehicles from planes, tanks to navy with 3 countries fighting, England and France vs Germany
- It uses a realistic penetration based damage system, which means you can shoot the crap out of a tank for example but unless you are using the right kind of rounds and hitting it in the right spots you won't do any damage to it, you need to learn what equipment can be used to damage the opponents and how to do it.
- The Developers are often viewing/posting in the forums and it's not unusual to see them in the game.
- The combat in this game is very good, you can be part of some epic battles, fights over a city may last days, with the overall campaign lasting months.
- It has a day/night cycle which adds to the immersion and variation to the battle dynamics, 1.31 will introduce variable weather.
- Very good stats system, shows all sorts of info from when you started playing the game.
There are some also some bad points to consider:
- It's not as visually appealing as modern games, but remember this is a 10 year old game engine with a huge map, 6-8km view distance and capacity for thousands of players on the map, has a small budget and development team of around 8 people.
- Development time can be drawn out, some things like higher resolution terrain were in works years ago but have yet to see the light of day. It is amazing what they achieve though and 1.31 has gone beyond what I was expecting.
- The playerbase is also quite small which can make the server feel underpopulated at times. Most of the players are US/UK based (This game will only get better with more players and has potential to be HUGE)
- The game has had some performance issues, It has been improved with engine tweaks and 1.31 should introduce more fixes (The current version is running pretty smoothly)
- The huge learning curve, while this can also be seen as a positive it does turn away a lot of new players, you need to be patient and accept that you are going to get killed a lot and probably never see who killed you, there are plenty of people out there who are willing to help out new players too.
- The kill system can be frustrating at times, sometimes not awarding you with kills you should have got, they are planning on overhauling it at some point.
All I can say is this game is well worth checking out, they always have a free 2 week trial running but it requires a credit card number to prevent abuse. They will no doubt run another longer trial around the release of 1.31 open beta, they recently had free 1 month trials with an invitation by a subscribed player. I would expect to see this again. This game has come a long way since it's release in 2001 and since I started playing, around 2005. It will continue to be updated, 1.31 being a drive to get more players into the game with a visual upgrade.
Anyway onto the preview, click the link for details, screenshots, videos. There should be more info in the following weeks and the open beta shouldn't be too far away.
http://www.battlegroundeurope.com/index ... ll-physics" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
A few screenshots I have picked from the 1.31 preview:
