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There are 2 parts to this
review, please use the pulldown below to browse sections or simply hit "Next"
at the bottom of each section to continue
About Ironstrom
by Richard "makit3d" Throgmorton
For my game review kickoff at AthlonXP I began searching the web for demos
of unreleased games. I came across several demo sites and put together a large
list of publisher sites, but the majority of what I found had already been reviewed
to the extreme. That or didn't have the quality, polish, or at a development
stage to generate much interest. Trying to find something new that had not hit
the mainstream of internet game review sites, or was on par with the expectations
of the current gamer proved to be a rewarding challenge.
For this review I have found  .
A 3D first person shooter created by 4xStudio
with a storyline based loosely on WWI. It's been around long enough to have
been out as a demo and to have been reviewed, but after playing it I felt you
deserved to know more about it. Here is a portion of the storyline:
"This
atrocious war began in August 1914. It is now March 1964 and, believe it or
not, it is still being waged
I was born in a bombed-out bunker and, though
I have never known my parents, I know only too well this crazed humanity, which,
for the last 50 years, has only been concerned with slaughtering itself
Occidental
and American troops are fighting against the armies of a sort of latter-day
Genghis Khan. This megalomaniac - who put a bloody end to the Bolshevik Revolution
- has got it into his head to create a sort of Russo-Mongol Empire, stretching
from the Atlantic to Vladivostok. Believe me, he doesn't exactly wear kid gloves
Faced
with this madman, the West could think of nothing better than floating their
armies on the stock exchange in order to finance this dirty war
and there
are plenty of people who line their pockets by speculating on the deaths of
others. The front-line has divided Germany in two for years now. Half of the
German people are fighting for the West while the other half are fighting
for the Russo-Mongols. As for me, I'm stuck in the front lines, here in a
hell-hole called Wolfenburg, with one simple question I'd like answered: when
the hell am I going to be left in peace
?"
You can read a more detailed description and a download here: DreamCatchers
Games: IronStorm. This game is expected to be released October 21st.
Note: due to the death of my cpu all images in this review have been taken
from 4xStudio and DreamCatcher galleries. I apologize for this, but the images
are very similar to what I was able to achieve on my machine with a Radeon 64
DDR ViVo video card.
Installing and Troubleshooting
by Richard "makit3d" Throgmorton
From
the gallery at 4xStudio
it wasn't clear if the game was based on a 1st or 3rd persons perspective. Reading
through the site I discovered that you can switch between both views at anytime
by a assigned key. "Too damned cool", I told myself and immediately went for
the download. From the look of the screenshots on the website I was already
impressed with the quality of the graphics. But, knowing how different games
look on my system compared to the 'High Quality setting' screen shots put in
a games image gallery I reserved judgment until I could see it for myself.
System Specs:
Pentium 4 1.5ghz
DFI NB70-SC Mobo
Radeon 64mb DDR ViVo
768mb DDR 2100
10gb WD/40gb Maxtor hdd's
MS Win2k Pro |
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After
downloading and installing Ironstorm I was all set to begin playing after a
reboot. It starts up and begins to go through theng cinematic story when
suddenly it crashes and kicks me back to the desktop."Not good", I told myself,
but knowing it was a demo I was not surprised to see this happen. At the same
time I was disappointed because I hate to do more work then is necessary to
play any game and troubleshooting is the worst. So, off to the forum I went
to hopefully find a solution.
The
forums for the game seem to suggest two main possibilities. Ironstorm seems
to have a compatibility issue with Logitech mice. Most notably USB mice. The
fix was to update to the latest drivers or get a Micro$oft mouse instead and
since I already had a MS mouse I looked for the next solution.. (Since the games
recent release it has been noted in the forum that the problem with mouse compatibility
is still an issue and no resolution seems to have been made along with the problem
with the movies.)
The next solution was to delete the movies folder or, more simply, rename it.
I renamed and continued to search through the forums reading everything posted
with other issues about the game. I found no other problems/solutions that fit
my situation and I was hoping renaming the folder would be what was needed to
allow me to play. Tentatively, I click the game icon and, Voila!, the game worked
and ran fine (with the exception of having no movies).
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