CheerfullyInsane
Posts: 199
Joined: 12/5/2010 From: Birkerod, Denmark Status: offline
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Any game will have some level of abstraction built into it, no matter what the scale. While it's true that soldiers in a squad would communicate, and change plans according to the situation as they saw it, so would squads in a platoon. And platoons in a company, etc. The point is that if you can live with generalizations on a platoon-level, surely generalizations on a squad-level are no different. CMx1 had 20m tiles IIRC, and everybody was okay with it meaning a squad was *somewhere* within that square. Now they've moved to 1m tiles, which occasionally means you get soldiers milling about the odd obstacles, but in reality it's no different from the earlier system, they're simply showing you where the individual soldiers are instead of abstracting it. So calling it a 1:1 system is a bit of a misnomer, since you're not moving soldiers but squads (or occasionally teams). So why do it in the first place? Well, to me at least, it looks way cool. Granted, there's the odd hiccup every now and then, but the over-all graphics are much improved. For those amongst you who play miniature wargames (gotta be more than me) it's the difference between Cold War Commander (using platoon-bases) and Ambush Alley (using ind. soldiers, but moving them as a team). While the mechanics may be the same, and the results are compatible I much prefer one over the other. Then there's the argument that the game comes before the graphics. Which is true, to a point. But there are a few disclaimers. First, I don't agree with the notion that having one guy working on animation means having one guy less to fix the AI. It assumes there's something for the guy to fix in the first place. Second, while I agree that a game should *be* good first, and *look* good second, I also believe that given a choice between two equally good games, I'd take the good-looking one. Given the chance to crush, kill and dismember my foe (AKA good times), I'd prefer to do it in HD with surround-sound. Why should eye-candy be limited to FPS? Even games such as the Silent Hunter series has improved the graphics exponentially and let's face it, when it comes to simulations, sub-sims are about as hard-core as they get.
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"Something is always wrong, Baldrick. The fact that I'm not a millionaire aristocrat with the sexual capacity of a rutting rhino is a constant niggle" - Edmund Blackadder
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