Ok, here's my review; ignore me if I'm bringing up stuff that's known, I'm simply reporting my personal experience so far. I'm also relatively new to gaming from a technical perspective so go easy on me if I'm spouting rubbish! I'll also give some opinions; these are by no means me trying to change the game; I just know input is always helpful so take it or leave it
Contextual Opinion
Overall, I'm loving the direction that's been taken with this game. The interface is delicious, the designs and decisions that have made are well informed, and I can already tell it's going to be a sandbox worthy of many, many hours exploration (and hopefully development too!)
Performance
I'm sorry to say that the game as a whole runs slow on anything above the absolute minimum. I'm running on low at 720p and I'm getting 31fps constant, which is great. However, any higher settings and it barely hits 10-15, so there's a HUGE gap between using Low and Medium and 720 and 1080. My system's slow but not that slow. To put that into perspective (I know it's extremely ignorant to compare this to other games, but I feel in this case it's pertinent...) I'm running TW: Rome 2 at around 30fps with everything turned up (including Res) and that's a pretty demanding game when it comes to land battles...I have other games too which use Unity that run surprisingly well, so I think the fact it's Windows on a Mac can help with resource efficiency somehow, despite my slow GPU...possibly some more hardware-specific optimization could help HoO here? I'm also having random black-outs both when taking command and when firing my guns. That said, I did read somewhere that occasional black-outs are known and there on purpose so that could be intentional.
On a lighter stance, the game loads absolutely instantly; probably my SSD making short work of it, but I haven't even seen any loading screens yet!
Side note: For those who missed the convo above, I also had an issue running alongside Steam. This is probably unique to my system but could be worth investigating to ensure it's not a deeper issue?
Graphics
Bearing in mind I'm on LOW...
Graphics are gorgeous. Seriously, on Hi-Res and Fantastic I can imagine they're almost motion picture good. The reflections, the shadows, even the textures on Low are nice. However, i'm having some sort of deep anti aliasing going on. Everything's super soft even at 720p (which really shouldn't be on this screen)...is this intentional? If so, it may be good to have an option to turn off (I'm sure this is already being considered) as I have a feeling it could be responsible for the slow-down if so.
Secondly, there's some kind of camera mesh going on (screenshot below)...like black dots/dirt moving with the camera over all the textures. I initially thought this was intentional to give it a 'gritty' look, but seeing other screenshots I don't think it is...
You can see it on the hills quite clearly, though a screenshot doesn't really show the movement. It's almost like a lens filter for certain textures. Is this intentional?
Finally, the UI is hiding parameters...ie I get no player options, just the drop-down and upon selection they disappear again. It all works, it's just invisible.
Also, my Options menu doesn't open despite not being greyed out.
Sound
I'm guessing sound is in early stages as I don't have any save the confirmation noise on the interface.
Character/Ship
Character creation is a great addition; Saints Row IV move over! It's full and enjoyable...with more clothing options it'll be a staple of the game. The shadowing is a little odd on the naked skin, but I'm guessing shaders are still in dev for that. Dynamics and kinetics are pretty spot on; the jump is a little bit much for a realistic game, but overall it's great fun!
The vessel is beautifully modeled; kudos to whoever made her
Flags are a little wacky, which I'm sure is known. She's also grounded on the sea bed which no doubt is also known. Ship texturing is sublime, though I'm not sure it's responding as well as it could to the environment...do we have HDR on the ship model? As the horizon is pretty super but objects seem somewhat flat. Could again be because I'm on low...
Dynamically, she feels a little railed and over-responsive to sail...I know this is being worked on as we speak so I won't go into any more detail here.
Camera Angles
This is probably my only real gripe with the game so far. I get the feeling we have a wider field of view than we really need.
At this angle she goes a little distorted; the masts and sails squash, the stern huge but the rest of the hull tiny. If I move the camera, whatever is closer will then become huge. You can also see it in my screenshot above this one...the hut on screen-left is distorted quite badly. All games have it I know, but it can be unrealistic. It hurt some realistic aspects of
Ship Simulator 2006 for me as ships aren't meant to be distorted, and I'm concerned it could be the case here. Personally I'd rather her be close. Though if this is an artistic decision, I'm not arguing...it certainly has its merits
Possibly include as a video option?
Gameplay
While it did take me a while to work out how to board the ship
, once I worked it out the keys were a pleasure to work with. What is the end-game plan with camera movement? Movement keys were standard so no problems there, and I especially liked how streamlined yet effective the interface is...especially the map/wheel HUD.
There's just once tiny thing I couldn't get my head round. When I tried quitting, it would give me the quit menu then the take command menu and I'd end up in an endless cycle of pressing 'yes'...
Overall
This was a fairly comprehensive review, I know. And I hope I haven't alienated anyone being so blunt.
Thing is, I really love what's already been done with HoO and i'd rather be honest than beat the bush as I feel it's important it be eventually optimized for OSX... and making it fit the Apple hardware drivers is probably a first step towards that. It's a seriously fun game, even at this stage and I have utter respect for everyone working on it. If we keep sailing on the same heading I'm confident it'll be something truly special. I'm happy to provide more info/screenshots if needed and of course any logs I can help with.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to provide my thoughts
but could be worth checking out?
. Lunch aside, it eats my half gig Radeon Mobile chip for breakfast and elevensies too. It doesn't know what hit it...