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Because this is a beta, I will not take account into any technical or lag issues. Had this been a demo, I would've taken out my pitchfork as well
Originally posted at Gamefaqs.com as that and this board are the main forums I go to regarding Battlefield:
First and foremost, the destruction of the environment. It adds a whole new element to infantry and urban warfare that benefits the vehicles and the defending side long term and the attacking side short term. For vehicles, the destruction of cover and concealment for infantry is a guilty pleasure like melting the Arctic ice forcing seals, baby seals especially, to be in the ice cold waters infested with whales. It used to be that the towns, buildings, forests, and artificial objects were natural enemies to vehicles. You couldn't bring down a structure no matter how much explosives you used. It used to be that a thin tree could halt a 60 ton main battle tank that was going full speed.
You can bring down almost all buildings now (there are some that just won't collapse like the building that's being constructed) and you can easily run over trees and other thin objects. Perhaps a bit too easy: somehow my infantry toppled down the Stop sign just by running against it. Strangely, you can't destroy rocks such that there's one particular rock in the beta map that every beta player would know by now the “sniper's rock” on the attacking side.
It's a new element to infantry warfare since now you can have multiple ways to enter into a building (if it's even a building anymore) and create artificial cover from the remaining structure. There was one moment where I tried to get into a building but could not find any openings. Frustrated, I used my grenade launcher to create a hole in the wall for me to enter. Later on I found out that you can open doors now.
I say it's beneficial long term to vehicles as time wears on, there will be almost no effective cover and concealment left for infantry to hide in. If anyone played World in Conflict, you would know the best method to prevent infantry to be effective was to burn down every forest and demolish every building. Same as well for this game, and with ground vehicles taking more of a support role (further explained later), players will instead camp outside a town or area and lay siege on buildings and other covers.
As for the graphics, not much to say except it's on par with the current times. However, the game just overdoes it on bloom even in a snow map. If a place had such bloom effect, every resident would have had skin cancer . Furthermore, some objects like the remains of a destroyed vehicle and in one case, a whole power line tower (as I was flying the chopper), suddenly pop up for you to notice as you get close to it. It's distracting and destroys the immersion factor of this game.
Another gripe I have, one that deserves its own paragraph, is the field of view. It is non-standard, impedes infantry gameplay, and has made me feed very disoriented when it came to close quarters combat. Imagine playing Battlefield 2 as infantry, only your eyes are 2 inches away from the monitor. That's EXACTLY how I felt. I literally see no reason why DICE had to do this for PC at least. Bring it to 90, or at least increase from what it is now. Something of a change this small that can have enormous improvements to the one of the facets of this game should not be ignored.
One thing that stands out in a positive light (is that a pun?) are the visual effects: how explosions, gun fire, bullet travel, smoke trails, vehicle remains etc, are shown. They are just beautiful and I especially love how the tracer vs. normal rounds ratio is balanced such that the battles don't resemble something close to Star Wars yet enough to show how the projectiles travel, drop under gravity, and spreads out as it travels further. Firing a heavy machine gun never looked so good. As for the vehicle remains, instead of self-destructing and vanishing, it remains in the map and looks quite natural as if it was there to begin with with fire and smoke coming out, ashes surrounding the vehicle which sunk a bit into the earth.
In conjunction with these effects are the sound. If I had to pick which aspect of this game was vastly improved from its predecessors, it would have to be the sound effects. It's dynamic, it harmonizes with the beautiful visual effects so well such that a blind person could easily sense the thrill or urgency of battles. This game by far has the best sound effects I've heard so far. No question.
One odd mention is while player characters blurt out so much obscene language enough to make a soccer mom cry, the beta servers have put a word filter on. However, it's easily the case private owned servers won't have such censorship.
The king of game mode for the Battlefield franchise is no doubt Conquest. It attracts both sides to converge and fight over select points, yet allows players to have the freedom to achieve other objectives (i.e: taking other flags, stealing vehicles, harassing main base, etc). Rush mode is totally different from that, it restricts players to be in a certain area and feels like a one-way Tug of War match. This isn't a bad thing: both sides are forced to engage in one single spot leading to massive battles composed of several skirmishes, but you can't do anything more than that, and often leads to cases to being on a leash. One example is the “Sniper's Rock” I mentioned. The defending side cannot assault that rock as it's out of bounds for them, so the defenders can only engage them by sniping or a player willing to sacrifice himself to kill as many snipers as he can within 10 seconds.
Previous Battlefield games revolved around a central theme with each army representing the opposing powers of that theme. Battlefield 1942 was based on World War II, Battlefield Vietnam was based on Vietnam War, and Battlefield 2 was based on modern warfare between US, China, and Middle East. Battlefield Bad Company 2 on the other hand, I have a hard time grasping its theme: the equipment and uniform looks nowhere like the uniform of the U.S. and Russian military, every side has the same default equipment, and the only distinct difference between both sides is the heavy equipment and the language being used. In essence, it feels like I'm taking sides with professional mercenaries than the classic USA vs. Russia/USSR.
With that said, because the two sides are difficult to differentiate, it's difficult to determine visually who's your opponent and friend. In previous Battlefield games, it was very easy to differentiate who was friend or foe simply based on their uniforms. In this game, both sides have similar uniforms. Close quarters combat for me went as "Shoot first, find out if he's friend or foe later". I know in the future, experience will let me learn who's who without much thought, but again, this lack of differentiation by first impression reinforces that there's no central theme to this game.
As if both sides couldn't have been anymore similar, both sides are also given the same equipment load. Both sides start out with an AK variation. Both sides start out with the PKM. Both sides start out with the M24. Now in BFBC2's defense, you do eventually get other weapons like the M249, XM8, SV-98, and the SCAR-L such that in practice, you get to customize your class based on the side you're on (XM-8 for assault as USA, SV-98 for Recon as Russia, PKM for medic as Russia while M249 for USA), but that doesn't ignore the fact that both sides have access to these weapons while in the past Battlefield games, each army had their own unique weapons and kits, notably Battlefield Vietnam, making each army interesting and worth to put time in.
Well another common thing each army has is the Medic class...I don't know where to start for this class. In BF1942 they were given submachine guns which was okay. In Battlefield Vietnam, DICE Canada thought it was okay to make a class that had an assault rifle, C4 charges, medic packs, AND grenades. That was not okay. In Battlefield 2, DICE forsook and damned the assault class by giving the medic class the same assault rifles which were statistically more accurate than the assault class. Now I have to wonder how the hell did the medic class get the light machine gun. These things are similarly accurate as the assault rifles and have comparable power, just that instead of 30 round magazines, you get a 100 round belt. The class also has an identity crisis as the player skin seem to be a SF soldier. My thought is summed up in this image:
By far one of the biggest absences other than fixed wing aircraft is prone. It's weird considering the Battlefield franchise was one of the first popular FPS game that I remember that implemented prone and to have it gone feels like DICE has dumbed the game down by going backwards, regardless their reason being to prevent camping. Now in a game mode like Rush, prone is not useful at all since both sides are always moving and laying in one spot almost guarantees you to have a lead in your head as the entire enemy is in the same area as you're in. Snipers can still effectively snipe at targets at far distances and the PKM is amazingly accurate both standing and crouching. I suspect most BF veteran players, even knowing there's no prone, will by reflex try to prone and the reality will hit them hard. Have no fear though, I suspect everyone will get used to it eventually. The snipers are used to it already.
Previously, armors especially tanks were the big boss in assaults and combat, especially in Battlefield 2. The tank's coaxial machine gun were deadly accurate and the rounds fired from the main cannon were both anti-infantry and anti-armor. In BFBC2, the cannon is less effective against infantry and more suitable against other armors and destroying buildings. How less effective? Well generally whoever was using the mounted machine gun got more infantry kills than me using the cannon. It's that weak. I found the T-90 to be better at demolishing buildings (very fun by the way) than being in the brunt of battle especially when half of all infantry classes had AT capability. Before, the infantry classes that could counter the armors were cornered to that role. In BF1942, the AT class was given a pistol. In Battlefield 2, the offensive AT class had a submachine gun while the defensive engineer class were given shotguns. Not to effective against infantry. Other than making the tank's life annoying, these classes had no other effective offensive roles. In BFBC2, it's much different. The class that carries the C4 charges also have a sniper rifle. The class that carries the AT launchers have a silenced assault rifle. These classes are not only AT classes, but effective infantry killers as well. No longer can armors barge into an urban area with impunity and proceed to eat every infantry it sees. I suspect the tanks will be more effective as players unlock the coaxial machine gun, but I'd rather use these tanks as a siege weapon.
Helicopter gunships are the direct opposite, at least for the Apache in the beta. You need a chopper gunner for it to be effective. The rockets are weak as the gunships from BF2142. The damn Bushmaster cannon unloads uncountable number of rounds per burst such that its "point and click" to kill infantry most of the time. Now right now, most players can't fly the Apache (thankfully), much less fly it well (most have been crashing it after takeoff), but this vehicle has the potential to be the most feared vehicle of the game not only because of how effective it is against infantry, but how difficult it could be to shoot down. Let me break it down to you:
Vodnik vs. Apache: The Apache only needs to be far away and circle around to avoid most of the fire as the bullet's travel time, bullet drop, and dispersion of bullets are much more pronounced. Even with a low ping, the Vodnik gunner is going to have a hell of a time trying to shoot the helicopter down as he'll need to constantly lead and readjust his aim.
Russian APC vs. Apache: Like the Vodnik, the AAA rounds from this vehicle are subject to travel time, drop, and a wider dispersion of its rounds. The fact that the AA gunner is exposed means the Apache only needs to fire a burst of its Bushmaster gun to kill the gunner without having to kill the vehicle.
Infantry vs. Apache: The Apache are almost impervious to small arms fire, the only chance infantry has to take out this gunship is to use the AT rockets, but again, the Apache only has to move around to avoid them. Not to mention the pilot gets a warning that a rocket is approaching. In previous gameplay videos, it was shown that a homing dart could guide these rockets to the helicopters, but I don't see that happening if the helicopters maintain a very high altitude.
As an anecdote, my co-pilot managed to get 20 - 30+ killstreak killing nothing but infantry and light vehicles, and all I had to do was be at the edges of the map, moving around to avoid AAA and rocket fire. The only dangerous moment was when we almost collided with the cute drone helicopter (which was shot down shortly). We switched roles. The pilot did the same thing as I did before and I just spammed that cannon everywhere on the map (The chopper has infinite ammo and rockets). The feeling was almost akin to using the AC-130 in Modern Warfare 2 in multiplayer...only that no one can shoot you down and you're in it for the entire round.
I've written a lot about the Apache because I truly believe this and other helicopter gunships will be THE BIG BOSS of this game as aircrafts were in Battlefield 2. Looking into the game's details, there are no vehicles that have AA missile capability.
The other aircraft is the drone. The idea of launching a missile from the sky is a novel one, and with Modern Warfare 2 making it fun and various news stories reporting Taliban & Al-Qaeda deaths, one would expect the drone to be devastating as well. Well no. It feels like this cute little chopper that could easily be confused with a child's toy from Hasbro only launches a missile with the equivalent power of a RPG-7 rocket. You have to almost hit the infantry target directly to kill him. It takes two or three hits to destroy an armor. To test the player's patience, the cooldown time between each missile launch is long, about 15 seconds. It's only effective at killing stationary light targets like the fortified machine guns or snipers. I commend the presentation of this drone system, but it's going to wear off for players as they find out they're better off going out into the field than control this toy. I cannot help but say how cute this chopper looks and I feel like a kid again flying it.
Well, that's it for me regarding how I'm seeing this game. If you read through the entire article, well done to you.
Originally posted at Gamefaqs.com as that and this board are the main forums I go to regarding Battlefield:
First and foremost, the destruction of the environment. It adds a whole new element to infantry and urban warfare that benefits the vehicles and the defending side long term and the attacking side short term. For vehicles, the destruction of cover and concealment for infantry is a guilty pleasure like melting the Arctic ice forcing seals, baby seals especially, to be in the ice cold waters infested with whales. It used to be that the towns, buildings, forests, and artificial objects were natural enemies to vehicles. You couldn't bring down a structure no matter how much explosives you used. It used to be that a thin tree could halt a 60 ton main battle tank that was going full speed.
You can bring down almost all buildings now (there are some that just won't collapse like the building that's being constructed) and you can easily run over trees and other thin objects. Perhaps a bit too easy: somehow my infantry toppled down the Stop sign just by running against it. Strangely, you can't destroy rocks such that there's one particular rock in the beta map that every beta player would know by now the “sniper's rock” on the attacking side.
It's a new element to infantry warfare since now you can have multiple ways to enter into a building (if it's even a building anymore) and create artificial cover from the remaining structure. There was one moment where I tried to get into a building but could not find any openings. Frustrated, I used my grenade launcher to create a hole in the wall for me to enter. Later on I found out that you can open doors now.
I say it's beneficial long term to vehicles as time wears on, there will be almost no effective cover and concealment left for infantry to hide in. If anyone played World in Conflict, you would know the best method to prevent infantry to be effective was to burn down every forest and demolish every building. Same as well for this game, and with ground vehicles taking more of a support role (further explained later), players will instead camp outside a town or area and lay siege on buildings and other covers.
As for the graphics, not much to say except it's on par with the current times. However, the game just overdoes it on bloom even in a snow map. If a place had such bloom effect, every resident would have had skin cancer . Furthermore, some objects like the remains of a destroyed vehicle and in one case, a whole power line tower (as I was flying the chopper), suddenly pop up for you to notice as you get close to it. It's distracting and destroys the immersion factor of this game.
Another gripe I have, one that deserves its own paragraph, is the field of view. It is non-standard, impedes infantry gameplay, and has made me feed very disoriented when it came to close quarters combat. Imagine playing Battlefield 2 as infantry, only your eyes are 2 inches away from the monitor. That's EXACTLY how I felt. I literally see no reason why DICE had to do this for PC at least. Bring it to 90, or at least increase from what it is now. Something of a change this small that can have enormous improvements to the one of the facets of this game should not be ignored.
One thing that stands out in a positive light (is that a pun?) are the visual effects: how explosions, gun fire, bullet travel, smoke trails, vehicle remains etc, are shown. They are just beautiful and I especially love how the tracer vs. normal rounds ratio is balanced such that the battles don't resemble something close to Star Wars yet enough to show how the projectiles travel, drop under gravity, and spreads out as it travels further. Firing a heavy machine gun never looked so good. As for the vehicle remains, instead of self-destructing and vanishing, it remains in the map and looks quite natural as if it was there to begin with with fire and smoke coming out, ashes surrounding the vehicle which sunk a bit into the earth.
In conjunction with these effects are the sound. If I had to pick which aspect of this game was vastly improved from its predecessors, it would have to be the sound effects. It's dynamic, it harmonizes with the beautiful visual effects so well such that a blind person could easily sense the thrill or urgency of battles. This game by far has the best sound effects I've heard so far. No question.
One odd mention is while player characters blurt out so much obscene language enough to make a soccer mom cry, the beta servers have put a word filter on. However, it's easily the case private owned servers won't have such censorship.
The king of game mode for the Battlefield franchise is no doubt Conquest. It attracts both sides to converge and fight over select points, yet allows players to have the freedom to achieve other objectives (i.e: taking other flags, stealing vehicles, harassing main base, etc). Rush mode is totally different from that, it restricts players to be in a certain area and feels like a one-way Tug of War match. This isn't a bad thing: both sides are forced to engage in one single spot leading to massive battles composed of several skirmishes, but you can't do anything more than that, and often leads to cases to being on a leash. One example is the “Sniper's Rock” I mentioned. The defending side cannot assault that rock as it's out of bounds for them, so the defenders can only engage them by sniping or a player willing to sacrifice himself to kill as many snipers as he can within 10 seconds.
Previous Battlefield games revolved around a central theme with each army representing the opposing powers of that theme. Battlefield 1942 was based on World War II, Battlefield Vietnam was based on Vietnam War, and Battlefield 2 was based on modern warfare between US, China, and Middle East. Battlefield Bad Company 2 on the other hand, I have a hard time grasping its theme: the equipment and uniform looks nowhere like the uniform of the U.S. and Russian military, every side has the same default equipment, and the only distinct difference between both sides is the heavy equipment and the language being used. In essence, it feels like I'm taking sides with professional mercenaries than the classic USA vs. Russia/USSR.
With that said, because the two sides are difficult to differentiate, it's difficult to determine visually who's your opponent and friend. In previous Battlefield games, it was very easy to differentiate who was friend or foe simply based on their uniforms. In this game, both sides have similar uniforms. Close quarters combat for me went as "Shoot first, find out if he's friend or foe later". I know in the future, experience will let me learn who's who without much thought, but again, this lack of differentiation by first impression reinforces that there's no central theme to this game.
As if both sides couldn't have been anymore similar, both sides are also given the same equipment load. Both sides start out with an AK variation. Both sides start out with the PKM. Both sides start out with the M24. Now in BFBC2's defense, you do eventually get other weapons like the M249, XM8, SV-98, and the SCAR-L such that in practice, you get to customize your class based on the side you're on (XM-8 for assault as USA, SV-98 for Recon as Russia, PKM for medic as Russia while M249 for USA), but that doesn't ignore the fact that both sides have access to these weapons while in the past Battlefield games, each army had their own unique weapons and kits, notably Battlefield Vietnam, making each army interesting and worth to put time in.
Well another common thing each army has is the Medic class...I don't know where to start for this class. In BF1942 they were given submachine guns which was okay. In Battlefield Vietnam, DICE Canada thought it was okay to make a class that had an assault rifle, C4 charges, medic packs, AND grenades. That was not okay. In Battlefield 2, DICE forsook and damned the assault class by giving the medic class the same assault rifles which were statistically more accurate than the assault class. Now I have to wonder how the hell did the medic class get the light machine gun. These things are similarly accurate as the assault rifles and have comparable power, just that instead of 30 round magazines, you get a 100 round belt. The class also has an identity crisis as the player skin seem to be a SF soldier. My thought is summed up in this image:
By far one of the biggest absences other than fixed wing aircraft is prone. It's weird considering the Battlefield franchise was one of the first popular FPS game that I remember that implemented prone and to have it gone feels like DICE has dumbed the game down by going backwards, regardless their reason being to prevent camping. Now in a game mode like Rush, prone is not useful at all since both sides are always moving and laying in one spot almost guarantees you to have a lead in your head as the entire enemy is in the same area as you're in. Snipers can still effectively snipe at targets at far distances and the PKM is amazingly accurate both standing and crouching. I suspect most BF veteran players, even knowing there's no prone, will by reflex try to prone and the reality will hit them hard. Have no fear though, I suspect everyone will get used to it eventually. The snipers are used to it already.
Previously, armors especially tanks were the big boss in assaults and combat, especially in Battlefield 2. The tank's coaxial machine gun were deadly accurate and the rounds fired from the main cannon were both anti-infantry and anti-armor. In BFBC2, the cannon is less effective against infantry and more suitable against other armors and destroying buildings. How less effective? Well generally whoever was using the mounted machine gun got more infantry kills than me using the cannon. It's that weak. I found the T-90 to be better at demolishing buildings (very fun by the way) than being in the brunt of battle especially when half of all infantry classes had AT capability. Before, the infantry classes that could counter the armors were cornered to that role. In BF1942, the AT class was given a pistol. In Battlefield 2, the offensive AT class had a submachine gun while the defensive engineer class were given shotguns. Not to effective against infantry. Other than making the tank's life annoying, these classes had no other effective offensive roles. In BFBC2, it's much different. The class that carries the C4 charges also have a sniper rifle. The class that carries the AT launchers have a silenced assault rifle. These classes are not only AT classes, but effective infantry killers as well. No longer can armors barge into an urban area with impunity and proceed to eat every infantry it sees. I suspect the tanks will be more effective as players unlock the coaxial machine gun, but I'd rather use these tanks as a siege weapon.
Helicopter gunships are the direct opposite, at least for the Apache in the beta. You need a chopper gunner for it to be effective. The rockets are weak as the gunships from BF2142. The damn Bushmaster cannon unloads uncountable number of rounds per burst such that its "point and click" to kill infantry most of the time. Now right now, most players can't fly the Apache (thankfully), much less fly it well (most have been crashing it after takeoff), but this vehicle has the potential to be the most feared vehicle of the game not only because of how effective it is against infantry, but how difficult it could be to shoot down. Let me break it down to you:
Vodnik vs. Apache: The Apache only needs to be far away and circle around to avoid most of the fire as the bullet's travel time, bullet drop, and dispersion of bullets are much more pronounced. Even with a low ping, the Vodnik gunner is going to have a hell of a time trying to shoot the helicopter down as he'll need to constantly lead and readjust his aim.
Russian APC vs. Apache: Like the Vodnik, the AAA rounds from this vehicle are subject to travel time, drop, and a wider dispersion of its rounds. The fact that the AA gunner is exposed means the Apache only needs to fire a burst of its Bushmaster gun to kill the gunner without having to kill the vehicle.
Infantry vs. Apache: The Apache are almost impervious to small arms fire, the only chance infantry has to take out this gunship is to use the AT rockets, but again, the Apache only has to move around to avoid them. Not to mention the pilot gets a warning that a rocket is approaching. In previous gameplay videos, it was shown that a homing dart could guide these rockets to the helicopters, but I don't see that happening if the helicopters maintain a very high altitude.
As an anecdote, my co-pilot managed to get 20 - 30+ killstreak killing nothing but infantry and light vehicles, and all I had to do was be at the edges of the map, moving around to avoid AAA and rocket fire. The only dangerous moment was when we almost collided with the cute drone helicopter (which was shot down shortly). We switched roles. The pilot did the same thing as I did before and I just spammed that cannon everywhere on the map (The chopper has infinite ammo and rockets). The feeling was almost akin to using the AC-130 in Modern Warfare 2 in multiplayer...only that no one can shoot you down and you're in it for the entire round.
I've written a lot about the Apache because I truly believe this and other helicopter gunships will be THE BIG BOSS of this game as aircrafts were in Battlefield 2. Looking into the game's details, there are no vehicles that have AA missile capability.
The other aircraft is the drone. The idea of launching a missile from the sky is a novel one, and with Modern Warfare 2 making it fun and various news stories reporting Taliban & Al-Qaeda deaths, one would expect the drone to be devastating as well. Well no. It feels like this cute little chopper that could easily be confused with a child's toy from Hasbro only launches a missile with the equivalent power of a RPG-7 rocket. You have to almost hit the infantry target directly to kill him. It takes two or three hits to destroy an armor. To test the player's patience, the cooldown time between each missile launch is long, about 15 seconds. It's only effective at killing stationary light targets like the fortified machine guns or snipers. I commend the presentation of this drone system, but it's going to wear off for players as they find out they're better off going out into the field than control this toy. I cannot help but say how cute this chopper looks and I feel like a kid again flying it.
Well, that's it for me regarding how I'm seeing this game. If you read through the entire article, well done to you.
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