I hope so. Any ETA?

Today.


http://www.3dgamers.com/dlselect/games/ ... o.exe.html


Most of the "free" channels are overcrowded...just wait a few hours until other services like gamershell pick it up.

Just played the demo. It seemed ok. Very pretty and it feels more efficient too. But i was having overheat issues in battle and had to wait for the graphics card to cool off for about 15 seconds to restore the FPS rate. I suspect with huge unit size it will chug considerably. These two problems of mine will probably stop me from buying for now.

bah, wus. Build a new box!

Not only do i not have the money for that, i dont have the time, or sufficient interest.

Yes it seems you picked up somewhat "Less Expensive" hobbey

Bah, games don't give me joy anymore. Less expensive? I don't know about that.

For PC gaming In the last 2 years i've spent:

£650.00 for a PC
£400.00 on upgrades
£200.00 on games and other stuff
£1250.00 TOTAL

I'd need a new PC for Medieval Total War, so that means an extra:

£400.00 for a PC (including sale of old PC)
£30.00 for the game
£1680.00 NEW TOTAL OVER 2 YEARS

That's £840.00 per year.

For me, a top-notch paintball session costs £50. So with £840.00 minus the cost of the gun (£280) I can get 11 sessions per year. Minus £50 of gun maintenance, that makes 10 sessions per year.

That doesnt sound too much for me at the moment, but If we consider I can still play older games on my P4 3.0 GHz + 7800 GTX for a while, I think its worth the dough. Besides paintball is so much fun.

I think you just need to accept that you can't play the game with ALL bells ringing, you know? I think my rig is less powerful than yours (on paper) and I didn't have any problem at all running the demo battles in high (not highest) detail...of course, this is with normal unit size and 'huge' will chugg things up, but 'large' will probably work just fine. Not to mention relatively redundant features like bloom that can be deactivated.

Played the demo and I liked it. It's a little hard being dropped into a battle just like that with no real knowledge about what every unit is good at, but after a battle or two that problem dissolved. I loved that you can (apparently) put up wooden obstacles to repulse cavalery from your archers, and the fighting animations are just that much more realistic.

I'll be looking forward to this game with its full range of option: papal elections, crusades, American campaign...sweet!

sounds good. I need to grab that demo. Finally! After a year full of shitty games, we're finally getting some decent releases on the horizon.

BTW, I recently built a home media pc to host all my MP3s and videos...cost me right about $1000. It's not top of the line, exactly, but it's still quite decent and probably kicks my main pc in the nuts as far as performance is concerned.

so why not make it your main pc then?

I just beat the second battle of the demo, good fun. Well, actually it was the first battle (Pavia), already beaten the second one (Agincourt).

I took a lot of cool screens but thanks to the crappy built-in screenshot function most were fucked. The one I took with fraps came out really good tho. Now I sit and wait for the real thing to come out.

jesus dude...is your gamma up high enough? If that looks normal to you, I think it's time to you invested in a new monitor.

Anyway, I still need to download this damned thing. Maybe I'll bit torrent it during lunch.

Is it too bright? or too dark? I have to tune my graphics card settings all the time cos my monitor is dark-ish and games tend to use different standards and so forth. Really frustrating.

Well unless a nuclear bomb went off in the immediate vicinity i would say its a bit too bright.

Definitely some kind of nuclear warfare going on there.

Fine you hoes; I cut down on the nuclear shine :p I did a battle again and took some pics on a normal brightness/gamma level, and made a short video of a part of the battle. Apart from the initial fraps-lag it's pretty good, if I say so myself. Oh and you see me fuck up twice: once because my general unit has left the 'line' to chase an enemy and is all alone in the middle of enemy troops. Had to pause and hurry him back home.

Second time because I let a band of heavy infantry ram into my archer line just like that. No matter though, I won in the end. And upon paying closer attention (with the choreography and all :p) the game looks shit hot. All units are pretty tight in appearance and the crashing of troops into each other is a lot better than in RTW. And units seem to 'obey' directions better than in RTW.

Other remarks: apparently General's bodyguards aren't always cavalry in MTW II and cavalry is less impressive than in RTW. Then again, not all cavalry was killer in RTW...but the really good stuff (Cataphracts, Sacred Warband, Cibinarii) was completely unstoppable.

Anyhoo, enjoy the pics. At normal brightness. Satis, I'll drop in on you on msn to transfer the clip if you've got the time (it's 15mb)