Jutland – demo reviewed

Total score
Game play
Nuts & bolts

 

I got bored enough in the current drought of new wargames for downloading the Jutland demo to momentarily seem like a good idea …

All up I played the demo three times and as far as I can work out all the scenarios in the game are in the demo, they're just limited to the first ten minutes of play.  This setup means the ships mostly start with too much distance between them for there to be much action, but the limited play I had was enough to show me all I needed.  Even without considering the game's uniquely woeful server chaining variant of the DRM virus, the game is quite simply lousy.

The first two times I played I had enormous difficulty with the camera controls & giving orders to even small groups of two or three ships; there doesn't seem to have been any progress made on improving the interface since I played the original Distant Guns demo, and for all the hype about its visuals the visuals look pretty dated.  The third time I played the game it crashed.

Jutland is meant to be a mature game engine on its second outing, but it looks like nothing of the sort.  It looks very much like it's the product of a small gene pool of players inbreeding with a lone developer working in isolation from the mainstream of the gaming community. It looks that way because it is that way.  I uninstalled the demo this morning - a complete waste of 605MB of bandwidth.

ORIGINAL POST (14 December 2008)- Back when I cold shouldered the game

The demo for this game's just been released, but I haven't bothered to download it, for Storm Eagle's new licensing scheme's just been released too.

After the  fiasco of Distant Guns I was pleased to read rumours that Storm Eagle was going to dial down the DRM for this new game. But the rumours were wrong, they dialled up their notorious server chaining system instead, requiring activation of their games every seven days!

I have no doubt this game's lack of sales will be entirely attributed to piracy by Norm & Co., & that they'll need an even more intrusive system next time.