Bad Company 2 Reviews

[Spinkyone]

Someone received it in the post unexpectedly this morning (for an item whose delivery date is still next week) so review will come shorty. I'm just formatting the wall of text you normally expect from me...

Well my experience so far has been hampered to no end by the pile of wank that is the server browser. There appears to be no end of connection issues and a lack of servers on the whole. Hell I've only been able to join one match so far and that didn't last long before that steaming heap of crap that is punkbuster has a major seizure and I'm kicked again. There is a sizeable patch to download before you can play the game but still hasn't resolved some issues. EA "looking into it".

Over all the feel of the game is pretty fluid although some aspects are lacking namely the sound. It's no-where near as good as BF2's and PR's sound effects in particular, everything is kinda damp and squidgy. Performance is also bit dodgy at times and some aspects such as shadows look damn nasty without DX10/AA enabled and that requires a huge amount of resources.

The single player consists of an unholy amount of cut scenes, which contribute greatly to the 10GB or so of BC2, and to be honest isn't the reason you buy the game anyway. One thing to note is that the dodgy hit detection is back even in singleplayer. You can see blood splashing off a guys head but still he's standing there, I'd imagine this will be a major issue online. Bah it's just broken for now and without trying the multiplayer I would reserve judgement on some areas.

[Nikolai[NL]]

*steps away from BF:BC2*

[Hy3RiD]

mhmmm...

probally still get it ... :yeah
I'm a slave to the BF name

[Obliteratu]

BAAAA!

[Spinkyone]

More...

Played a couple of multiplayer games last night when I could finally get on at about 2 am. The simple truth is you will enjoy this game as much as you like vBF2. It is just another veneer on the same old concept of BF2 and has pretty much all of it's flaws. There is no teamwork or communication, there is a cheapness to all the weapons in that shooting someone multiple times in the face with one rifle isn't as good as another apparently and above all else it's a linear slog to get all the unlocks etc and there isn't the choice as previously advertised.

In short it may look kinda good but it's nothing new mainly because most players are still wankers. In all honesty I've had more fun in playing PR again recently than this by a long way and that was free; and that is another point that sinks it as there will be no mods for this game as previously mentioned. You may buy it but don't expect it to be the next big thing, it's just a diversion who's addictiveness depends on your desire to get the thousands of points. If you want to compare it to another game COD4 would be a very fair comparison to it's longevity, if not slightly less as you're pretty much doing the same thing all over again.

[Hy3RiD]

Awwwww... what I heard from other sites is that there was a very good amount of TW

Obviously not in your experience

[Spinkyone]

That would be the difference between how the game is meant to be played versus reality. You could probably have a good team game with a few of us on but it's flawed at times by BF frustration all the same. I'll see what happens as I've only touched the surface of the multiplayer, but the total lack of VOIP and nature of unlocks early on isn't helping so far. Personally I blame the fact the game has a singleplayer focus more than anything else and the singleplayer experience is vastly different to that of the multiplayer. Most reviews have centred on the singleplayer game as well since the PC multiplayer is comparatively minor versus the console game. See what happens but I'm not convinced so far.

EDIT: Should say I'd give it another go now but the technical issues appear to be worse today as a lot of people are completely unable to connect to the account server. Going to investigate other sound options to as apparently there is another setting I can try but still I don't' rate it all that highly.

[Hy3RiD]

Lack of VOIP?
I thought you could use VOIP to members within your squad...

[Spinkyone]

As above; difference between having it and using it. About as silent as vBF2/FH2 and when was the last time you heard a player use VOIP on that? Plus appears to have attracted COD players discontent with MW2 and VOIP on those games is even rarer than rocking horse shit.

Sound is improved by setting the option to "war tapes" but still isn't all that good. I blame the disparity between sound and reality with the explosions having the power of a wet fart. Sound is probably correct for the size of the explosions in game in other words but not reality e.g. unless you hit someone "pow right in the kisser" style with a grenade launcher you have little chance of killing them. Still unable to connect to the master account server which was meant to be fixed early this morning...

[Hy3RiD]

Ah, I was hoping for lots of team play and VOIP using


Meh, to be so naive...

[Spinkyone]

Pretty much my BC2 experience as well...



If you are still stuck at this point just manually click repeatability on any server name and endure multiple disconnects and 1000's of loading circles and you might just get in if punkbuster has kicked another player or they crash out.

[Obliteratu]

Brilliant video.

[Spinkyone]

A slightly farer retrospective review...

Managed to have another quick go after the L4D match wasn't all that bad. I think I've been a bit harsh with some aspects but it can be fun at times when it eventually works. Finally got some squad play in at long last and that is where the game begins to shine somewhat. Having squad members in vehicles is essential and so helpful as abilities can overlap, you can rack up a huge amount of kills this way and is a lot of fun. You just find there's so few squad members who will stick in the vehicle and that's the problem.

Initial learning curve given the starting weapons is still steep though and I've only really unlocked the first levels so far as honestly the basic weapons are pants. Levelling up the medic tree is taking an age as all the heal and revive abilities have to be unlocked and the machine gun isn't all the great a weapon as it sounds. Engineer appears to be the easiest to level up and is necessary as the starting weapon is dire. However you do get bonus points and shit for just about every action so isn't all that bad especially in squad play. Have yet to see someone use the VOIP though.

On to performance; I had to drop the resolution down a notch and the game runs pretty smoothly in multi-player, I suspect something else was afoot in the single-player though, however it can completely max out my CPU at times (to the point of becoming pretty damn toasty). So would appear to benefit hugely from a quad core / watch you if you're OC'ed as this pushed things as hard as a benchmark at times.

Still in-game multiplayer time is about 3 hours apparently, time looking at menus I'd say at least 6 hours. It's your call but could be a welcome distraction. By the way this also the time to bring up the download PR again topic? Need something else to do right now any who...

Wookie-fied -> Better after some time, work as a squad, performance isn't fantastic but is pretty good, we have fuck all else to play at times.

[Hy3RiD]

Wookie-fied

[Nikolai[NL]]

my vote is for PR atm based on 3 reasons:

1) it's free
2) it's free
3) BF:BC isnt great and isnt free