I purchased and installed this DLC this morning, and I have to say it is the worst purchase I have made this entire year. What rubbish.
This is one more reason I believe "East India Company" is on it's last legs. This new addition to "EIC", which could have been provided as free DLC for the main game, requires seperate initialisation outside of the main game and costs $9.99 (twice what I paid for the main game on sale at D2D) as a new download as from today.
There are few Options vailable to the player when you enter the Main Screen. No historical notes, no unit roster, no biographies of Commanders. These are must-haves for any historical simulator, which "Battle of Trafalgar" purports to be. The only choices that are really available are the difficulty levels (which really aren't that different from each other) - Arcade, Normal and Simulator.
You then enter the battle. The number of ships, or lack there-of is the first disappointment. You can already see this is going to be a skirmish and not a grand battle. The selection of commander is irrelevent as you must command each grouping of ships (about six strong - making for a total of 18) for tactical manoeuvering and battle. The ships you choose don't even follow simple orders (like "Line Formation"), and just go to where you click however they wish. Battle...this is the next big pitfall.
When you first zoom in on the ships you will be surprised to learn that for such large ships (as with the 106 gun HMS Victory), there is not one sailor to be seen on deck...NOT ONE. The ships are bereft of crews as if you are playing with toy boats in the bathtub. This may be corrected by a patch, but is unforgiveable in a full-priced (make that over-priced) DLC.
The battle between ships is actualy worse than the main game, with ships firing randomly at any target they feel disposed to firing at (it could be the last ship in the line, for whatever reason), and the shot arcs unconvincingly through the air as if the cannon had been elevated to 45 degrees (which they were not).
The whole affair lasts less than ten minutes, unless you try to destroy every last ship, but by then my patience had been thoroughly exhausted. There are no alternative scenerios, no "what if" scenarios, and the one available is small and rubbish. Whatever possessed Nitro to step outside of the main "EIC" game timeline is beyond me, but if they think they've got a headstart on Napoleon: Total War, they'd better think again.
A final word on graphics...simply awful. The ships are not detailed, the sea effect is not even close to par with the original, and the gunnery effects are dismal.
A lot of potential, a lot of hype, all for nought. Nelson would have been very happy not to have survived if this had been a faithful portayal of the real battle.
Very disappointing, Nitro
.
This is one more reason I believe "East India Company" is on it's last legs. This new addition to "EIC", which could have been provided as free DLC for the main game, requires seperate initialisation outside of the main game and costs $9.99 (twice what I paid for the main game on sale at D2D) as a new download as from today.
There are few Options vailable to the player when you enter the Main Screen. No historical notes, no unit roster, no biographies of Commanders. These are must-haves for any historical simulator, which "Battle of Trafalgar" purports to be. The only choices that are really available are the difficulty levels (which really aren't that different from each other) - Arcade, Normal and Simulator.
You then enter the battle. The number of ships, or lack there-of is the first disappointment. You can already see this is going to be a skirmish and not a grand battle. The selection of commander is irrelevent as you must command each grouping of ships (about six strong - making for a total of 18) for tactical manoeuvering and battle. The ships you choose don't even follow simple orders (like "Line Formation"), and just go to where you click however they wish. Battle...this is the next big pitfall.
When you first zoom in on the ships you will be surprised to learn that for such large ships (as with the 106 gun HMS Victory), there is not one sailor to be seen on deck...NOT ONE. The ships are bereft of crews as if you are playing with toy boats in the bathtub. This may be corrected by a patch, but is unforgiveable in a full-priced (make that over-priced) DLC.
The battle between ships is actualy worse than the main game, with ships firing randomly at any target they feel disposed to firing at (it could be the last ship in the line, for whatever reason), and the shot arcs unconvincingly through the air as if the cannon had been elevated to 45 degrees (which they were not).
The whole affair lasts less than ten minutes, unless you try to destroy every last ship, but by then my patience had been thoroughly exhausted. There are no alternative scenerios, no "what if" scenarios, and the one available is small and rubbish. Whatever possessed Nitro to step outside of the main "EIC" game timeline is beyond me, but if they think they've got a headstart on Napoleon: Total War, they'd better think again.
A final word on graphics...simply awful. The ships are not detailed, the sea effect is not even close to par with the original, and the gunnery effects are dismal.
A lot of potential, a lot of hype, all for nought. Nelson would have been very happy not to have survived if this had been a faithful portayal of the real battle.
Very disappointing, Nitro
.