We were incredibly disappointed by the launch of Takedown: Red Sabre. The game simply fell short of every promise it made. We had hoped to have a compact co-op tactical shooter that reminded us of an experience that has all but disappeared in gaming, but instead we encountered connectivity and AI issues. A new patch is out for the game fixing many problems.
Along with the patch, it seems the game's publisher, 505 Games, have gifted free copies of the game to owners on Steam to gift to their friends. This is great for co-op gamers and should help build up a great user base of folks to play with.
Unfortunately for us, in testing last night, the patch only partially fixed our connectivity issues. While we were able to jump into a few quick matches using the new quick match button, direct IP connects and invites via Steam failed to let us play together. The server browser seemed to be hit or miss as well, despite it several fixes coming to it.
There's still no word on the XBLA version of Takedown: Red Sabre, in terms of an official release date after the previous delay. It's nice to see Serellan and 505 continuing to make improvements to the game with added features and fixes based on feedback, but we're still waiting for the one feature we care about the most to work - co-op with friends.
The full patch notes are below.
New Features Support for Steam Quickmatch, allowing you to quickly hop into games utilizing NAT traversal - More info HERE http://www.serellan.com/forums/index.php?/topic/3356-quickmatch-player-servers-and-you/ Support for Valve Anti-Cheat Added “Team Messages” VO & Text Hotkeys (Z + Number Keys) 1. Enemy Killed 2. Enemy Sighted 3. Objective Secured 4. Copy 5. Flash Out 6. Frag Out 7. Holding Position 8. Man Down 9. Moving 0. Reloading Online & Steam Functionality Steam/UE3 Authentication Updates to improve connectivity You will no longer be required to be logged into Steam to save your Loadout settings Fixed insertion point selection when not logged into Steam When playing against someone who has not yet installed a patch (or if you haven't installed the latest available patch yourself), you should now have a more accurate message (instead of referencing a "downloadable content" mismatch) Steam language selection should now function correctly Removed Router message when unable to locate server Player Servers now correctly display numbers of players in games Gameplay Updates & Bug Fixes Fix for camera collision in spectate mode in certain areas related to relative Z position of map Many doors have been closed in various locations Players joining a co-op mission in progress (after 1 minute) will be set to spectate Named Loadouts “Recon, Assault, Breach, Sniper” Provided a suppressor to Squad Mate Charlie Team AI accuracy and response time increased Increased Grenade Damage Range Added audio indicators (beeps) to bombs in Att/Def to more easily locate them Modify Loadouts button changed to “Save Loadouts” UI no longer shows incorrect player counts in Last Man Standing In Radar Base in Last Man Standing game mode, missing doors have been fixed Body Armor mismatch fix for some characters Fixed Audio Call for MP5SD that was causing it to sound unsuppressed Fix for several Tango Hunt & Bomb Disarm Player Spawn points Double Door Spawn on some Facility variants fixed Updated several mis-translations in the Spanish version Bomb in Biolab: Lab now properly lit Misc. Localization fixes. Hotfix - 15 October 2013 Server list fix for 'No Servers' message displaying before loading the list Fixed spawn-points in ATT/Def HQ Alley. Fixed Cargo Ship spawn points for Tango Hunt & Bomb Disarm. Fix to introduce better exiting from the Quickmatch lobby. Fix to resolve Quickmatch "Searching..." cancellation issue. The searching prompt will now cancel immediately upon clicking Cancel, or pressing ESC. Countdown timer added to briefing videos in Single Player, alerting the player that a video is about to begin. Fixed Controls Menu from reordering incorrectly.