Knut wrote:My first impressions on the new reserve:
Overall, I would say it'd be a let-down, but it isn't, because I expected it to be kind of mediocre. Somehow EW always publishes a rather meh map after a visually stunning one. And TGT had it all.
A bit more detailed feedback, then....
The map
Oh, what a bummer.
The terrain itself is lacking plenty of love for details, the terrain surface is oftentimes bumpy and littered with unnatural shapes and forms that would've needed some TLC. Best example is the main river channel. No riverbanks, no natural appearance, just an undulating trough filled with water. It doesn't look at all like a natural river. No change of shape, type of ground or vegetation along it's shores. Trophy Hunter 2003's rivers looked like that. And then there's a striking lack of love for added details, like trails etc.
The vegetation, while in itself nice, is incredibly dull. Plenty of different plants and yet wherever you look, it all looks the same. The same mix of rather open vegetation with homogeneous underbrush and a rather light tree coverage. Extremely little variation in densities and appearance. Always enough structure to obstruct the occasional shot, but never enough to make spotting and stalking really tricky. Not at all how I'd imagined such a type of climate zone.
Another thing that seems to be really at beta levels at best are attraction zones for the animals and their pathfinding between them. I found hardly any roaming animal tracks that move from one place to the other. Whenever I found tracks, there was a ton of them going in circles within a very limited space with the animals clearly staying within the zone for very long periods of time. Only the feral hogs seem to roam a bit.
Sound
Another true gem of ambient sound. The audible atmosphere is stunning and really sets you in the mood. The frog in the swampy areas is lovably annoying, and the thunderstorms are truly frightening. Absolutely awesome atmosphere.
However, it's kind of funny that the raindrops are way louder on my left shoulder than on my right. There are a few ambient sounds where the stereo orientation is messed up and sides are switched. Same is true for the Rusa caller once again. I still have no clue why the devs refuse to check that, when it would be so simple. I have the impression sound orientation is applied randomly to any given sound effect.
The animals
The animations are mindbogglingly good! The way the bovides roam, with the spring in their step, is great. I shot a Sambar in the leg and the way it stumbled and fell, came back up and ran simply looked perfect. Great job!
Rusa and Sambar also have great body models and look stunning.
However the Sambar antlers are a total bust. They look like I did model them from play-doh with my clumsy hands. Varying thickness along the beam makes them look very unnatural and the T2 has the wrong orientation. It should sprout more backwards and not forwards.
Additionally, they're tricky to hunt. They roam incredibly fast and when fleeing are even faster. Three strides and they are out of render range, looks weird. Additionally, they are super skittish. I had them spooked several times at 150m+ while approaching crouched. I don't see me hunting them very much.
The bovides are the opposite, though. Rather slow roaming they seem to be quite thick, if not dumb. Easy take town. Especially as their lungs are the size of a family zodiac. Unfortunately, their model is a bit underwhelming. The horns look superartificial, way too smooth without structure and especially the horns of the Banteng look like the attached handle bars of a pommel horse. The size of the water buffalo horns are outrageously huge. And I just shot some rather small ones. And they've got a way too round cross section. Water buffalo horns have rather flat sides with some edges running along their length, they're not just a simple ovoid in the cross section. Big ones in game also seem so have some weird bulb end instead of a smooth point. All in all the horns look quite unnatural.
But the worst about them is the water buffal's texture, from some distance they have the same ugly shiny plasicky appearance as the old black bear model had.
And finally the hogs. Yes, they are fitting into the habitat. Yet, they're tremendously unnecessary. If I want to hunt feral hogs, I go to LP or BRR. I already ignorethem on the other reserves they are on. But in the dense vegetation of PB they are a nuisance indeed. But well, no big issue, either.
The overheating
Utter nonsense.
Not only is the game mechanics completely unneeded, the graphics also look like a cheap governmental simulator meant to rise awareness for the risk of drunken driving. Those peripheral ripple effects were already in the 1992 adventure game Dune and don't resemble any realistic visual impairment.
I I quote Knut, because I mostly agree with him. Mostly...
I like the idea behind the overheat mechanics, actualy. How this is implemented is a little bit different story, but I like the idea.
I'm also quite happy this reserve dosn't look as some have expected - otherwise it could be overkill for my PC.
But I like it also because the jungle is not as dense as I was afraid - some parts are even quite open, and this fit my playstyle. It is not very reallistic, probably, but I can live wih that.
Prior to announcment that this will be Aussie inspired map, I was hoping for India, among some other ideas. And while this is Australia, there are mostly some Indian and South-Eastern Asian animals. So I'm quite happy with that. This might be a reserve I will be hunting in, after all.
For the rest, I rather agree with Knut.
EDIT:
I forgot - In my impression Bantengs dies to easily from 7 mm RM. Maybe this is only because of they large lungs vs. small lungs of Bison, but with bison I definitely struggle more. And I wouldn't say that Banteng is somehow much more fragile than Bison, I suppose.
I don't have permitted weapon for Buffalo, so I can't say anything about this species.
My impression is that some re-balancing (spawn rates, roaming speed, number of calls) might be due...?!? After two hours of hunting, not being able to finish the Holiday mission, I gave up unnerved. Couldn't really enjoy it, it felt like a chore. Maybe it was a bad idea to try and finish that mission on my first hunt, maybe I should've tried to explore it without this goal. I'll give it another go tomorrow.
Peace.