Battlefield: Bad Company 2

[caladein]

Bad Company 1's DLC was pretty straightforward: one free game mode and one free 4 map pack.  Clearly EA wants to incorporate more micro-transactions into their full retail releases (see Dragon Age: Origins) but I don't think we should make too many inferences on how they'll do that in Bad Company 2, a full retail release, from Heroes, a game that's purely micro-transaction-based.

[NiX]

I wish they would start filming on a PC soon, watching that pad-panning all the time is painful. Also I want to see if they've got lean in, or if they're also going to be annoying about it.

It wasn't in BC1 and I'm pretty sure it won't be in BC2. Also, do you really plan to lean around the corner of a building that can be blown up?

[tgr]

It wasn't in BC1 and I'm pretty sure it won't be in BC2. Also, do you really plan to lean around the corner of a building that can be blown up?

Well, that would depend on what kind of game I was looking for. Personally I'd probably mostly be looking for proper tactics where cover would be a part of it. Not "YAAAA RAMBOOOOO" (or Leeroy Jenkins if you like) and all guns blazing. Since all the films I've seen from the game have been from the consoles, chances are it's more Leeroy Jenkins than not. :P

And yes, if the game hadn't been so Leeroy Jenkins, then I would've been using buildings as cover. It's still safer than stepping out round the corner.

[Azazel]

It wasn't in BC1 and I'm pretty sure it won't be in BC2. Also, do you really plan to lean around the corner of a building that can be blown up?

 

[NiX]

Don't facepalm. You're the one looking to BC for tactical movement. Never look to the sequel of a title touted as "Blow shit up in style" to do a complete 180 and go tactical. If anything this game is more about teamwork than anything else, being able to organize your team around a common objective. I really can't recall the last time I found lean very useful, not even in MW1. Unless it was slower on 360 and you had time to lean, but for the most part is was reserved for camping snipers and that's no big loss to me.

[Azazel]

Do buildings offer any cover at all from bullets/projectile weapons that don't make 'splodeys?

If yes, then 


Because any cover at all is better than standing there in the open waving your dick in the breeze, tactical or arcadey shouldn't be a factor.

[Sky]

Because any cover at all jumping around like a retard on meth is better than standing there in the open waving your dick in the breeze, tactical or arcadey shouldn't be a factor.

[LK]

This is starting to look really good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hARkZPVKQ98&feature=player_embedded

[tgr]

Damn, those guns sound orgasmic.

I'll be giving the gaming community 3-6 months before buying this, though. I don't want to buy a shenanigan-filled game, although I hope they've learned from IW's mistakes.

[Jimbo]

Wow, that does look sweet.

This game begs for big games with tons of people and vehicles, it's $49.95 to reserve the limited edition, can we do it with the amazon link?

[Azazel]

Fuck yeah!

BF's MP has always been my style of game, rather than the spammy combat or CoD games.

[Nebu]

I'm going to show my age here...

This reminds me of the direction that the Desert combat mod took BF 1942.  The game went from a strategic, thought-based shooter to a frantic, reflex oriented game.  Perhaps that's the gameplay most FPS gamers enjoy, but I rather prefer a more squad/strategy based war game. 

Might be time for me to consider WWII Online.

[tgr]

Or maybe ArmA 2, if you've got the hardware (and they've fixed most of the bugs, I haven't checked it out myself lately).

[Azazel]

I'm going to show my age here...

This reminds me of the direction that the Desert combat mod took BF 1942.  The game went from a strategic, thought-based shooter to a frantic, reflex oriented game.  Perhaps that's the gameplay most FPS gamers enjoy, but I rather prefer a more squad/strategy based war game. 

Yep, as much as I loved 1942, I found DC/BF2 more engaging. Probably because of the setting and hardware, but even so the game is still at a much more measured pace and less frantic/spammy than things like QW:ET, TF2, CS, DoD and CoD

[WayAbvPar]

That is my major complaint about COD4 (the only one I have played in the series)- too frantic with absolutely no team play or tactics. The videos of BC2 remind me more of COD than of BF2, so I am concerned about the pace of play. God the sounds are good though. Has anyone played the console beta to get a feel for the pacing?

[Azazel]

I just expect that since it's a teaser trailer and that MW1/2 are such big sellers that the trailer has been designed to appeal to them as much as possible. Since BF has a pretty big following of it's own, and features VEHICLES~! I imagine the gameplay won't be terribly different to past iterations.

I had my best teamwork moments in 1942, DC and BF2. It helps to be in the same room as friends, or at least on VOIP, but yeah, combat can get frantic, but we (almost) always played more tactically, and it was glorious.

[NiX]

That's exactly how the first one played with some minor changes to vehicles, HUD and the map design.

WAP - Typically it's not that frantic until you either A) are going for the victory rush on a flag/gold box or B) two enemy forces happen to bottleneck, which tends to happen in the urban areas of maps. I recall quite a few moments in BC1 where we snuck around and took out soldiers/snipers dug in or tanks laying down fire from afar. I think it's more like BF2 in that you can choose when you enter the fight rather than being like CoD where the fight typically comes to you.

Edit:

...although I hope they've learned from IW's mistakes.

http://twitter.com/L_Twin/status/4964309159 - Posted 1 day after IW announced no dedicated servers for MW2.

[Nonentity]

To be fair, the first Bad Company wasn't even a PC game. It is not a surprise that they are making this game to go after the disenfranchised PC players who were unhappy with MW2.

[Trippy]

That is my major complaint about COD4 (the only one I have played in the series)- too frantic with absolutely no team play or tactics.

There's plenty of that if you find the right server and gameplay.

[tgr]

...although I hope they've learned from IW's mistakes.

http://twitter.com/L_Twin/status/4964309159 - Posted 1 day after IW announced no dedicated servers for MW2.

Aye. I forgot to say that I was aiming BEYOND just that fuckup, but yes, that is the major mistake I hoped they'd learn from.

I just can't get over the sounds. squee!

[fuser]

The videos of BC2 remind me more of COD than of BF2, so I am concerned about the pace of play. God the sounds are good though. Has anyone played the console beta to get a feel for the pacing?

Its fast, and I agree the sounds are awesome, the M1A1's turbine whine is something to hear. Maybe its a perception thing but there is a slowdown soon as you die. You get to see your killer, his load out and a kill cam for a bit while waiting on re-spawn timer. But your quick back in the action as you can spawn off of squad leaders.

It feels a lot like BF2.

[WayAbvPar]

I think my preference is because I cut my teeth on Rogue Spear- very fragile, no healing, and once you were dead you sat out for the rest of the round (isn't CS like this too? been forever since I played it). I do plenty of headlong rushes in BF2 when the situation calls for it (flag defenses or caps mostly), but I can also do things slower and stealthier. I like having the option. Sounds like this is a bit of a hybrid, but it might offer enough to placate me until BF3 gets made.

[fuser]

I think my preference is because I cut my teeth on Rogue Spear- very fragile, no healing, and once you were dead you sat out for the rest of the round (isn't CS like this too? been forever since I played it).

Yep you sat out in CS. The waiting in BC2 is good tho as it lets you switch up gear loads on the fly before re spawn if your quick enough or check out scores and goals. So there is a bit of slow down/penalty if you die, but BC2's action is fast pace in comparison to R6/RS.

[WayAbvPar]

Short video about MP squad game.

Looks fun, but I hope that isn't the predominant MP play style.

[Azazel]

Looks interesting, actually. I can;t see the whole game being like this, but I'd much prefer something like this to CoD4's take on this kind of thing.

[Nonentity]

So, I bit the bullet and downloaded the beta for this on PS3, despite my floundering ineptitude in console FPS controls.

Take into consideration that I never played the original Bad Company, and I wasn't really a BF2142 player, so this is basically a leap from BF2 right into this.

It definitely feels like a Battlefield game, but one that has been dipped in the Modern Warfare sauce, as far as weapons and such. You get the gratuitous kill cam (which leaves the door open for massive teabag fests), and the feature where you can drop in behind any member of your squadmate that is alive. That just ended up being a situation where the entire non-sniper part of your squad would end up spawning behind the sniper on the team that was up on a hill behind a rock somewhere. I'm sure with any sort of decent organization, you'd be able to plan that out a little better, but for the purposes of playing a pickup game with no voice chat and no way to communicate to my squad, that's what I ran into.

The loadout system seemed pretty nice, with the individual XP being earned per class. I played long enough to unlock a SCAR for the Engineer class, which still didn't help the fact that I was running into walls and getting caught on geometry like an ungulate.

The sounds. Oh, the sounds. Everything just sounds right. I prefer the weapon models in Modern Warfare 2, but they are much more 'real' looking in this game, if that makes any sense.

The individual user-to-user combat seems fine, but ultimately, all this beta let me know is that it is still a Battlefield game, with tanks and such, and snipers being way up on a hill away from everyone else. I'm not going to be able to do an apples-to-apples comparison until I get some time in with the PC beta when that finally drops, and I'm not a floundering simian.

[Engels]

Looks good, but I wonder if the PC version is going to require a monster rig.

[caladein]

From the Battlefield Blog:

Minimum Frostbite PC Specifications for BFBC2 & BF1943
Processor: Core 2 Duo @ 2.0GHz
Main memory: 2GB
Graphics card: GeForce 7800 GT  / ATI X1900
Graphics memory: 256MB
OS: Windows XP
Free HDD space: 15GB for Digital Version, 10GB for Disc Version (BFBC2)
                         10GB for Digital Version (BF1943)
 
Recommended Frostbite PC Specifications for BFBC2 & BF1943
Processor: Quadcore
Main memory: 2GB
Graphics card: GeForce GTX 260/ ATI Radeon 4870
Graphics memory: 512MB
OS: Windows Vista or Windows 7
Free HDD space: 15GB for Digital Version, 10GB for Disc Version (BFBC2)
                         10GB for Digital Version (BF1943)

[WayAbvPar]

Rumor has it that Steam will offer this in 'squad packs' ala Borderlands. Any one interested in getting together on one? I would offer to collect the money, but I live in WA (where Valve is) so I get raped for sales tax.

[Azazel]

Potentially in on that.

[ffc]

Whoops, I forgot to cancel my MAG pre-order.  Just took care of it.  I blame Bad Company 2 for my change of heart. 

In case anyone is thinking about going console on this one the PS3 controls were not hard to get used to even with my propensity for spastic turning.

[Strazos]

Potentially in on that.

Seconded. And I'm in VA or NJ, and don't believe I get hit with Sales Tax.

[Azazel]

Hell, I might even be in for two. When are the system specs coming out?

[WayAbvPar]

4 posts above yours?

[schild]

I'd get in on a squad pack.