CGF 0.77 review by LM

(source unknown, listed by 6th Floor Repository daily rant)

CGF 0.77: Teamplay bots for AQ2

As the Action Quake II fans among you are probably aware, version 0.77 of the CGF (Computer Generated Forces) teamplay bots for AQ2 was released yesterday, 8 July 1999. I downloaded and installed it last night, and played it for a couple of hours last night and this morning (9 July). The following are my impressions and opinion of CGF.

First, the good news. The CGF bots are pretty smart for a beta. They move together, cover each others' advance, coordinate their fire, and generally do a respectable job of making life difficult for the player. I look forward to great things in v1.0. For the hackers and mod freaks, mission scripts are plain text files, readable (and modifiable) in Notepad. If you know anything at all about scripting, you'll find the syntax and command vocabulary pretty self-explanatory, and the readme contains a brief but helpful section on it as well. The download includes a very helpful syntax-checking utility, cgfparser.exe, to catch bugs and typos *before* you try to play your mission (and possibly crash Q2).

Second, the bad news. The missions that are included with the download are harder than hell. Your team is outnumbered and outgunned, so brush up on your small-unit tactics if you don't want your ass handed to you (though it probably will be anyway). The intelligence that I praised in the good news is quite impressive from a purely intellectual standpoint, but once you actually get out there amidst the blood and fire, it's a royal pain in the ass. New players should expect to lose. A lot.

One thing that some will find objectionable is the lack of deathmatch support. See the CGF FAQ for the reasons for this. Personally, I prefer teamplay over free-for-all anyway, but if you're a DM junkie, CGF may not be for you.

Finally, the miscellany. This beta, 0.77, is limited to a single map, Gerbil!'s urban.bsp. Other maps will be supported in future releases, and in other scripts, but for now it's urban or nothing. Also, it doesn't seem to like hacked scripts very well. I've got two scripts that I modified from missions that came with the download, and the crash rate is appalling. It shouldn't cripple your system, but don't be surprised if you find Q2 crashing left and right if you try to run a modified script.

Overall, I'm quite pleased. My main gripe is with the difficulty level of the missions; I'm getting thrashed, quite frankly, though I've had more success with my own scripts (hint: the bots are much easier to beat when they don't have Kevlar vests). I expect that once v1.0 rolls around, we'll see at least some player-produced scripts floating around.

The bottom line is that CGF is good stuff, especially considering that it's still in beta. I look forward to the next release.

LM
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