Since everyone else is posting up their thoughts on the game, I figured I would post mine as I wait to head back to College.
First Impressions
Since the release of Call of Duty 4, I have been dying waiting for EA to release the next Battlefield game for the PC. A game that would be Battlefield 2, but more updated, better graphics and better game play. Do I feel that Bad Company 2 delivered? Overall, absolutely!
While I have been waiting all these years for the next Battlefield game, I decided to cancel my Steam Pre-Order due to their delay, and go with EA Online. I was playing in the early morning hours on Tuesday, and now only 6 days later, have 40 hours in the game, 28 hours in Servers, and probably a few hours on the home screen cursing EA for their lack of ability to keep the server list up.
Single Player
Let me squeeze this in here and talk of it briefly. I don't buy games for their Single Player portion, I think it is just a little extra when you are having a bad day and can't kill anybody online. BC2 Single Player tends to do just that. I thoroughly enjoyed the beginning World War 2 missions, and a few missions that followed. I wish that DICE would've implemented a Single Player like Battlefield 2 though as well, where you would be able to just practice the maps in either Conquest or Rush against bots. Sadly, they didn't do such a thing.
Single Player definitely isn't no Call of Duty series Single Player that tends to deliver everytime, but it does fit my expectations and for that, Bravo. :thumbsup:
Multiplayer Front End
Username and Login is basically the same as any other Battlefield game. Use your e-mail, select the Soldier Name you want to use, option of Clan Tag, Connect and it brings you to the main area to play MP or check out the Leaderboard, your stats...etc
The one thing that really kept me going in Battlefield 2 for so many years was their in depth stat system. Sites like BF2s showed me what I needed to improve on, who my worst enemy was, who I raped the most and the awards like Gold, Silver, Bronze stars for 1st, 2nd & 3rd in the server. I feel Bad Company 2 stats have been dumb-ed down and while it will take you probably about 300 hours to get to the highest rank (If my calculations server me correctly), depending on your SPM, it isn't anywhere near the time it took in BF2. I am one of the many, but not everyone cares for stats, and I think EA took this into account with the weapon unlocks. It takes next to no time to get all the weapons for a particular class, which means if you just want to go in to the game and pick any and all weapons, after you put in about a day in Multiplayer, you should have 2/4 classes completely unlocked. Again, this can be judged on how well you play, and what type of player you are. (Campers getting 2 kills a round will take much longer)
EA/DICE decided to give us Dedicated Servers but no option to connect to IP Addresses. If someone isn't on your friends list and wants to join the server you are in, Good Luck! I am thankful that I have the Logitech G15 Keyboard, as both the G15 and G19 LCD displays will show you information like Server Name so if you friend does happen to hop online and say "Hey, what server are you in?", you can tell them the name, and they can look it up by Server Name in their Browser.
Speaking of "Browser", might as well go make a pot of coffee and use the bathroom once you select "Server Browser" because while you follow the circular loading icon as it says Waiting for Data, you may begin feeling depressed and partially suicidal. :dead: (joke) .. I am not impatient by any means, but this has to be the longest wait for a Refreshed List in any game, ever. To continue on this waiting spree, if you decide to add a few servers to your Favorites so you don't always need to select Server Browser, please let me know when that gets working for you! You attempt to add a server to your Favorite, and again appears that circular loading icon and those words, Waiting for Data, appear again as if it is so challenging to add a server to your favorites, and then you start raging and smashing the ESC key on your keyboard but those words, Waiting .. For .. Data still sit on your screen taunting you till you explode and hit Ctrl + Alt + Del and End Task = BC2. (true story)
In a Server, Time to Play
As you get passed the gauntlet of the server browser and all of its woes, and connect to a server, it is time to get down to business. The weapon loadout screen could've been designed better, but it does its job. It will save your loadout between rounds, but one you quit the server and connect elsewhere, your previous loadout is gone. No big deal, but I have accidentally spawned with the "stock" loadout quite a few times when I joined servers and it's kinda like slapping on a "Bound to Die" tag on your forehead. By no means do the stock kits suck, but you will always have your own preference and will do good with some guns, and not others.
I think the graphics are phenomenal! I feel they easily compare to Modern Warfare 2 in their own light and I have not found myself raging about "glow" or "shiny" things, though, I see enough snow out my window, I wouldn't of minded if DICE left snow out of this game! With my rig (See sig), I play everything on High with War Tapes Audio and 1360 x 768 and get a constant ~60FPS, sometimes drops down to 35 for a second. I do find myself always lagging though! It isn't server lag, so it must be graphic lag. It definitely isn't smooth at all, and I think it is either my Video Card is just failing on me, Nvidia Drivers suck, or it is simply the game needs some tweaking. Either way, it isn't a game changer for me, but if the problem gets fixed, somehow, the game would be all that much better.
The explosions are mint, and although the first few times playing I hugged the walls, I now fear them. Nothing worse than getting a wall blown out on your face. :cry: The building collapses are sweet, though I don't see the "2.0". You can blow out the whole bottom level of a house, and yet it will stand unless you start taking out the top portion. With no walls holding up the rest of the structure, I don't see how the house could stand but it is nothing to complain about considering most other games have no such destruction of any sort, and it really brings a whole new type of gameplay to you, the gamer.
The guns are great, simply enough. Although, I find myself wishing the M95 was a 1 shot kill no matter where you hit them, it simply wouldn't be fair, and maybe I am just not a very good sniper as I seem to get 1 shot killed quite often against M24's, GOL's and the M95's. The assault guns really shine and show the difference between them. They each have their own advantages and disadvantages, while I feel the Medic LMG's are very underpowered. A PKM should be just as strong as any assault rifle, yet it is considered weaker according to the BC2 charts. Doesn't make any sense, but I still get raped by medics so they are still effective.
With that being said, if you like Battlefield 2 guns, I personally believe you will love Bad Company 2 guns when it comes to the "feel" for the gun, the damage rates and accuracy.
The 40MM Grenade Launcher is effective and easy to use. Noob Tube remains the primary description of this deadly weapon, as I have an 80% accuracy with it and already a Platinum Star. (10 Gold Stars, 400+ Kills) In any other game I have ever played, I have shunned Noob Tubing. I find it to be awfully lame, but it is far too easy to use it, and use it effectively, in this game to not put it to good use.
What is a Battlefield series game without vehicles? There isn't one. With that being said, DICE took away our planes from BF2 but they definitely are not needed in this game.
- Light Armored APC's = I think these are very deadly vehicles if you carry a repairman along with you, as well as the secondary weapon perk to fend off sticky situations like Tanks, and other Light Armored APC's. The secondary weapon on these vehicles is an AT Rocket. If you go 1v1 APC vs APC and you have secondary weapon perk as your choice, you will win easily, and drive away with a good chunk of health remaining. As the same, if you go up against a tank and you have a repairman, if you have the strategy, you can take out a full armored tank as well.
- ATV's, Humvee's ..etc = First off, as I believe everyone has claimed, the ATV suspension is flawless. Hop on one of those bad boys and you will feel like you are in an ATV game and you just wanna go do some off roading and get some "mad air". ATV's allow for quick swift access to enemy bases, and Humvees and other vehicle transport vehicles simply do their jobs by getting you from point A to point B. I am not a fan of Humvees at all though. Get to where you need to go and quickly abandon vehicle is my perspective on them because they are easy prey. UAV, Tank, APC, RPG, AT4, 40MM Grenade ... you name it, you are dead meat if one of those hits you.
- Tanks = Awesome! I haven't played Battlefield 2 thoroughly for a few months now but I can't tell a difference between these tanks and the ones in BF2. I've shot a few choppers out of the sky with them, you can destroy buildings, rape infantry, and go head to head with just about anything. AT4's and other AT weaponry is the ultimate downfall. I find C4 to hardly work unless the tank is in a tight space, but the AT Mines are something tanks tend to never expect, especially when you put them in explosion-created craters on the roads.
- UAV = DICE needs to fix the problem where if you turn Invert off for the Chopper, it gets turned on for the UAV, and vise versa. I can't fly inverted in the chopper, which means I definitely can't fly like that in the UAV. Also, I feel that DICE could've/should've made the UAV controls the exact same as the chopper. Using R & F for Raise and Lower is kinda dumb as sometimes my finger slips and presses E, therefore kicking you off the UAV 'station' and blowing up the UAV
Gametypes
Good old Conquest! For the Battlefield veterans, nothing new here. I never minded Conquest in BF2, but now with Rush being available, I tend to get bored of Conquest and switch back and forth between the 2. I am overly glad DICE went this route, though, it was probably quite obvious since the beginning that there would be more than 1 gametype. With that being said, I will not touch on the Squad Gametypes, as I haven't played them, and have no desire to. 8 or 16 Player Max is far too small for my liking.
The purpose of Rush is that one team defends 2 objectives at a time, while the other team attempts to attack, plant, and destroy those objectives to advance to the next 2. I consider it Call of Duty S&D on steroids. A completely different pace than Conquest, the maps are considered "smaller" due to only fighting in one spot at a time and will tend to make it feel like a completely different form of battlefield. DICE gets an A+ on this game type!
Squad Gameplay
If you are in a clan of more than 4 people, and play with more than 4 people, this is where you can easily become disappointed. I seem to always have 4 clan guys + me online gaming at the same time, which means one gets left out of the squad, or you need a squad of 3 and a squad of 2 which makes you much less effective if you are trying to stick together.
I think DICE should've had the majority of squads set to 4, but have a couple squads in the "Squad Management" set to 6 man squads so those with more friends gaming together, will have a better opportunity of sticking together.
Another thing they implemented with the squad play in BC2 that is far different than BF2 is that you can spawn on anyone in your squad, not just the Team Leader (Which, by the way, is hard to tell which person it is). As well, while in BF2 they had it locked so you cannot join squads while you die, in this game, you can change squads, or simply join a squad while you are dead. This can really be 'abused' or 'taken advantage of'. Let me give you a prime example that just occurred last night!
Me and 3 clanmates were in a Rush Gametype Server and our team was going for the last 2 objectives. We all died, which meant we'd have to spawn back at our last base. However, as we waited for the 10 second respawn, I seen a guy on the mini-map was hiding behind their "B" Objective which means we would be at B instantly, instead of needing to run all that way, and as well, could make an attack from behind. As I saw this icon on my map, I decided to switch Squads till the blue icon turned green. (aka, he's in my squad). I spawned on him, pressed "ENTER" and changed back to my clan squad and they all spawned on me.
Now, that's impressive. Instead of taking what could've been a few minutes to sneak our way to the objectives, I took only 10 seconds to switch spawns, spawn, and switch back and have my team spawn on me.
Is this something you'd do everytime you die? Hell no! But when you are in need of getting close to an enemy base and you see teammates around, it's that easy to just switch squads and spawn closer than your previous squad was. I feel that DICE should definitely fix this because it can just become unfair. If the players on your team are organized enough, one person can end up having the whole team spawn on them as they hide in/near an enemy base.
I think that's about all I have on my mind for this review. If you know of anything else you would like me to touch on, let me know. Hope you have all enjoyed this lengthy read. For those of you who already have the game, which is most of you, I suspect this read will be more like common sense than anything else.
First Impressions
Since the release of Call of Duty 4, I have been dying waiting for EA to release the next Battlefield game for the PC. A game that would be Battlefield 2, but more updated, better graphics and better game play. Do I feel that Bad Company 2 delivered? Overall, absolutely!
While I have been waiting all these years for the next Battlefield game, I decided to cancel my Steam Pre-Order due to their delay, and go with EA Online. I was playing in the early morning hours on Tuesday, and now only 6 days later, have 40 hours in the game, 28 hours in Servers, and probably a few hours on the home screen cursing EA for their lack of ability to keep the server list up.
Single Player
Let me squeeze this in here and talk of it briefly. I don't buy games for their Single Player portion, I think it is just a little extra when you are having a bad day and can't kill anybody online. BC2 Single Player tends to do just that. I thoroughly enjoyed the beginning World War 2 missions, and a few missions that followed. I wish that DICE would've implemented a Single Player like Battlefield 2 though as well, where you would be able to just practice the maps in either Conquest or Rush against bots. Sadly, they didn't do such a thing.
Single Player definitely isn't no Call of Duty series Single Player that tends to deliver everytime, but it does fit my expectations and for that, Bravo. :thumbsup:
Multiplayer Front End
Username and Login is basically the same as any other Battlefield game. Use your e-mail, select the Soldier Name you want to use, option of Clan Tag, Connect and it brings you to the main area to play MP or check out the Leaderboard, your stats...etc
- Stats
The one thing that really kept me going in Battlefield 2 for so many years was their in depth stat system. Sites like BF2s showed me what I needed to improve on, who my worst enemy was, who I raped the most and the awards like Gold, Silver, Bronze stars for 1st, 2nd & 3rd in the server. I feel Bad Company 2 stats have been dumb-ed down and while it will take you probably about 300 hours to get to the highest rank (If my calculations server me correctly), depending on your SPM, it isn't anywhere near the time it took in BF2. I am one of the many, but not everyone cares for stats, and I think EA took this into account with the weapon unlocks. It takes next to no time to get all the weapons for a particular class, which means if you just want to go in to the game and pick any and all weapons, after you put in about a day in Multiplayer, you should have 2/4 classes completely unlocked. Again, this can be judged on how well you play, and what type of player you are. (Campers getting 2 kills a round will take much longer)
- Server Browser & Options
EA/DICE decided to give us Dedicated Servers but no option to connect to IP Addresses. If someone isn't on your friends list and wants to join the server you are in, Good Luck! I am thankful that I have the Logitech G15 Keyboard, as both the G15 and G19 LCD displays will show you information like Server Name so if you friend does happen to hop online and say "Hey, what server are you in?", you can tell them the name, and they can look it up by Server Name in their Browser.
Speaking of "Browser", might as well go make a pot of coffee and use the bathroom once you select "Server Browser" because while you follow the circular loading icon as it says Waiting for Data, you may begin feeling depressed and partially suicidal. :dead: (joke) .. I am not impatient by any means, but this has to be the longest wait for a Refreshed List in any game, ever. To continue on this waiting spree, if you decide to add a few servers to your Favorites so you don't always need to select Server Browser, please let me know when that gets working for you! You attempt to add a server to your Favorite, and again appears that circular loading icon and those words, Waiting for Data, appear again as if it is so challenging to add a server to your favorites, and then you start raging and smashing the ESC key on your keyboard but those words, Waiting .. For .. Data still sit on your screen taunting you till you explode and hit Ctrl + Alt + Del and End Task = BC2. (true story)
In a Server, Time to Play
As you get passed the gauntlet of the server browser and all of its woes, and connect to a server, it is time to get down to business. The weapon loadout screen could've been designed better, but it does its job. It will save your loadout between rounds, but one you quit the server and connect elsewhere, your previous loadout is gone. No big deal, but I have accidentally spawned with the "stock" loadout quite a few times when I joined servers and it's kinda like slapping on a "Bound to Die" tag on your forehead. By no means do the stock kits suck, but you will always have your own preference and will do good with some guns, and not others.
- Graphics
I think the graphics are phenomenal! I feel they easily compare to Modern Warfare 2 in their own light and I have not found myself raging about "glow" or "shiny" things, though, I see enough snow out my window, I wouldn't of minded if DICE left snow out of this game! With my rig (See sig), I play everything on High with War Tapes Audio and 1360 x 768 and get a constant ~60FPS, sometimes drops down to 35 for a second. I do find myself always lagging though! It isn't server lag, so it must be graphic lag. It definitely isn't smooth at all, and I think it is either my Video Card is just failing on me, Nvidia Drivers suck, or it is simply the game needs some tweaking. Either way, it isn't a game changer for me, but if the problem gets fixed, somehow, the game would be all that much better.
The explosions are mint, and although the first few times playing I hugged the walls, I now fear them. Nothing worse than getting a wall blown out on your face. :cry: The building collapses are sweet, though I don't see the "2.0". You can blow out the whole bottom level of a house, and yet it will stand unless you start taking out the top portion. With no walls holding up the rest of the structure, I don't see how the house could stand but it is nothing to complain about considering most other games have no such destruction of any sort, and it really brings a whole new type of gameplay to you, the gamer.
- Guns
The guns are great, simply enough. Although, I find myself wishing the M95 was a 1 shot kill no matter where you hit them, it simply wouldn't be fair, and maybe I am just not a very good sniper as I seem to get 1 shot killed quite often against M24's, GOL's and the M95's. The assault guns really shine and show the difference between them. They each have their own advantages and disadvantages, while I feel the Medic LMG's are very underpowered. A PKM should be just as strong as any assault rifle, yet it is considered weaker according to the BC2 charts. Doesn't make any sense, but I still get raped by medics so they are still effective.
With that being said, if you like Battlefield 2 guns, I personally believe you will love Bad Company 2 guns when it comes to the "feel" for the gun, the damage rates and accuracy.
The 40MM Grenade Launcher is effective and easy to use. Noob Tube remains the primary description of this deadly weapon, as I have an 80% accuracy with it and already a Platinum Star. (10 Gold Stars, 400+ Kills) In any other game I have ever played, I have shunned Noob Tubing. I find it to be awfully lame, but it is far too easy to use it, and use it effectively, in this game to not put it to good use.
- Vehicles
What is a Battlefield series game without vehicles? There isn't one. With that being said, DICE took away our planes from BF2 but they definitely are not needed in this game.
- Light Armored APC's = I think these are very deadly vehicles if you carry a repairman along with you, as well as the secondary weapon perk to fend off sticky situations like Tanks, and other Light Armored APC's. The secondary weapon on these vehicles is an AT Rocket. If you go 1v1 APC vs APC and you have secondary weapon perk as your choice, you will win easily, and drive away with a good chunk of health remaining. As the same, if you go up against a tank and you have a repairman, if you have the strategy, you can take out a full armored tank as well.
- ATV's, Humvee's ..etc = First off, as I believe everyone has claimed, the ATV suspension is flawless. Hop on one of those bad boys and you will feel like you are in an ATV game and you just wanna go do some off roading and get some "mad air". ATV's allow for quick swift access to enemy bases, and Humvees and other vehicle transport vehicles simply do their jobs by getting you from point A to point B. I am not a fan of Humvees at all though. Get to where you need to go and quickly abandon vehicle is my perspective on them because they are easy prey. UAV, Tank, APC, RPG, AT4, 40MM Grenade ... you name it, you are dead meat if one of those hits you.
- Tanks = Awesome! I haven't played Battlefield 2 thoroughly for a few months now but I can't tell a difference between these tanks and the ones in BF2. I've shot a few choppers out of the sky with them, you can destroy buildings, rape infantry, and go head to head with just about anything. AT4's and other AT weaponry is the ultimate downfall. I find C4 to hardly work unless the tank is in a tight space, but the AT Mines are something tanks tend to never expect, especially when you put them in explosion-created craters on the roads.
- UAV = DICE needs to fix the problem where if you turn Invert off for the Chopper, it gets turned on for the UAV, and vise versa. I can't fly inverted in the chopper, which means I definitely can't fly like that in the UAV. Also, I feel that DICE could've/should've made the UAV controls the exact same as the chopper. Using R & F for Raise and Lower is kinda dumb as sometimes my finger slips and presses E, therefore kicking you off the UAV 'station' and blowing up the UAV
Gametypes
- Conquest
Good old Conquest! For the Battlefield veterans, nothing new here. I never minded Conquest in BF2, but now with Rush being available, I tend to get bored of Conquest and switch back and forth between the 2. I am overly glad DICE went this route, though, it was probably quite obvious since the beginning that there would be more than 1 gametype. With that being said, I will not touch on the Squad Gametypes, as I haven't played them, and have no desire to. 8 or 16 Player Max is far too small for my liking.
- Rush
The purpose of Rush is that one team defends 2 objectives at a time, while the other team attempts to attack, plant, and destroy those objectives to advance to the next 2. I consider it Call of Duty S&D on steroids. A completely different pace than Conquest, the maps are considered "smaller" due to only fighting in one spot at a time and will tend to make it feel like a completely different form of battlefield. DICE gets an A+ on this game type!
Squad Gameplay
If you are in a clan of more than 4 people, and play with more than 4 people, this is where you can easily become disappointed. I seem to always have 4 clan guys + me online gaming at the same time, which means one gets left out of the squad, or you need a squad of 3 and a squad of 2 which makes you much less effective if you are trying to stick together.
I think DICE should've had the majority of squads set to 4, but have a couple squads in the "Squad Management" set to 6 man squads so those with more friends gaming together, will have a better opportunity of sticking together.
Another thing they implemented with the squad play in BC2 that is far different than BF2 is that you can spawn on anyone in your squad, not just the Team Leader (Which, by the way, is hard to tell which person it is). As well, while in BF2 they had it locked so you cannot join squads while you die, in this game, you can change squads, or simply join a squad while you are dead. This can really be 'abused' or 'taken advantage of'. Let me give you a prime example that just occurred last night!
Me and 3 clanmates were in a Rush Gametype Server and our team was going for the last 2 objectives. We all died, which meant we'd have to spawn back at our last base. However, as we waited for the 10 second respawn, I seen a guy on the mini-map was hiding behind their "B" Objective which means we would be at B instantly, instead of needing to run all that way, and as well, could make an attack from behind. As I saw this icon on my map, I decided to switch Squads till the blue icon turned green. (aka, he's in my squad). I spawned on him, pressed "ENTER" and changed back to my clan squad and they all spawned on me.
Now, that's impressive. Instead of taking what could've been a few minutes to sneak our way to the objectives, I took only 10 seconds to switch spawns, spawn, and switch back and have my team spawn on me.
Is this something you'd do everytime you die? Hell no! But when you are in need of getting close to an enemy base and you see teammates around, it's that easy to just switch squads and spawn closer than your previous squad was. I feel that DICE should definitely fix this because it can just become unfair. If the players on your team are organized enough, one person can end up having the whole team spawn on them as they hide in/near an enemy base.
I think that's about all I have on my mind for this review. If you know of anything else you would like me to touch on, let me know. Hope you have all enjoyed this lengthy read. For those of you who already have the game, which is most of you, I suspect this read will be more like common sense than anything else.
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