Screenshots :.
Bad Company 2 Multiplayer Beta
PC
Matt
09-02-2010
"Duck, cover, shoot, kill. That's the theory anyway."
"But can it withstand my rocket barrage? WELL?"
"NOOOOO! He was a day away from retiring. A DAY!"
There came a point, about three hours into my Battlefield Bad Company 2 beta career, where I picked up my toys and threw them out of the pram. See, most (if not all) of my multiplayer shooter experience had been based around small squad games; your Left 4 Deads, your Ghost Recons, that kinda lark. Suddenly being thrust into a 16 v 16 battle across a shifting front with people pinging left, right and centre carrying out their class-specific tasks was a bit much to take in, and initially I was lost amongst a sea of bullets and explosions, doubting whether my meaningless flailing was actually helping my team at all.
Over the period of the next few days, I learnt something. The first was that, in the world of Battlefield, even the most innocent of events can help your team no end, no matter if you thought it insignificant. Take yesterday as an example, during which at one point I scurried around the outside of our control point and found a lone medic trying to sneak in and set a charge. I capped him, which in turn meant our engineer could not only repair our tank a little free of distraction, but also have time to launch a rocket into the side of the enemy team’s tank, which stopped it killing at least three of our folks on the second floor of a nearby house. Score.
The second is that the structure of said games, whereby you rank up and unlock new weapons and items to use, is bloody addictive. I am always a bit of a sucker for progression and incentives in online modes, and being able to equip my engineer with new rifles (the standard one is about as effective as a pea shooter), new rocket launchers or anti-tank mines and the like makes the toil worth it.
You could argue that the beta is too small a portion for us to get a true impression, and I grant you that. You get one map to play Rush mode over, in which one team attacks a set number of crates and the other tries to defend them whilst depleting the opposition’s set amount of respawn tickets. Defending comes down to a healthy mixture of leaving a squad or two of soldiers back at base to tidy up any people that slip through an advancing defensive net, with Recon units proving crucial in giving their buddies a bit of cover whilst they dash forward to meet the enemy head-on.
The thing that came as a surprise to me, being somewhat of a Battlefield n00b, was just how much you can do. Lodged in your camp is a UAV (basically a mini helicopter) that anyone can use to zip around the map and bomb the living heck out of the enemy when they are least expecting it. There are tanks, APC’s and quad bikes to pelt around on, all of which can carry more than just the driver. Then there’s the helicopter, which can often be the scourge of any team as it hovers around making dive bomb runs and wiping out entire squads in one fell swoop. The tactical possibilities are huge.
Of course, this leads to initial problems acclimatising yourself to it all. One pro tip I have is to hook up with at least one real-life mate and work together at it, as general rule of thumb means that learning the ropes with someone less likely to call you a tit if you make a mistake makes games more fun. Still, it took me a couple of hours at least to get into it, but once I did I didn’t look back. If you ever come across someone kneeling behind a tank frantically repairing it as it gets bombed to heck then that’s probably me.
Problems? A little harsh as it may be during beta stage to hold a game up on issues, there are a couple of things that will hopefully get sorted. The first is possibly due to the demand that the beta finds itself in right now, but most of the time it is a little tricky to get yourself into a lag-free server. Likewise, the game seems to run rather jerkily at times, which doesn’t seem to cure itself even if you experiment with graphical settings. You learn to work around these issues, but it’d be nice come release day if things were a heck of a lot smoother.
Another issue that can’t really be cured, and one that has irked many folks, is that the PC version does seem to suffer a little from consolitis. I personally had to whack the mouse sensitivity up a large degree to give myself a decent feel for movement, but initial experiences will seem a little sluggish to people. Again, it’s something you learn to live with, but it will annoy a few folks.
Overall though, the beta has given me more than enough to convert me into a Battlefield player, and given how narrow a selection it presents that’s no mean feat, especially when you consider how many FPS games we churn through here. Heck, if any multiplayer game can get me and Jay working as a cohesive unit then it must be something. See you on the front, and stay frosty.
Over the period of the next few days, I learnt something. The first was that, in the world of Battlefield, even the most innocent of events can help your team no end, no matter if you thought it insignificant. Take yesterday as an example, during which at one point I scurried around the outside of our control point and found a lone medic trying to sneak in and set a charge. I capped him, which in turn meant our engineer could not only repair our tank a little free of distraction, but also have time to launch a rocket into the side of the enemy team’s tank, which stopped it killing at least three of our folks on the second floor of a nearby house. Score.
The second is that the structure of said games, whereby you rank up and unlock new weapons and items to use, is bloody addictive. I am always a bit of a sucker for progression and incentives in online modes, and being able to equip my engineer with new rifles (the standard one is about as effective as a pea shooter), new rocket launchers or anti-tank mines and the like makes the toil worth it.
You could argue that the beta is too small a portion for us to get a true impression, and I grant you that. You get one map to play Rush mode over, in which one team attacks a set number of crates and the other tries to defend them whilst depleting the opposition’s set amount of respawn tickets. Defending comes down to a healthy mixture of leaving a squad or two of soldiers back at base to tidy up any people that slip through an advancing defensive net, with Recon units proving crucial in giving their buddies a bit of cover whilst they dash forward to meet the enemy head-on.
The thing that came as a surprise to me, being somewhat of a Battlefield n00b, was just how much you can do. Lodged in your camp is a UAV (basically a mini helicopter) that anyone can use to zip around the map and bomb the living heck out of the enemy when they are least expecting it. There are tanks, APC’s and quad bikes to pelt around on, all of which can carry more than just the driver. Then there’s the helicopter, which can often be the scourge of any team as it hovers around making dive bomb runs and wiping out entire squads in one fell swoop. The tactical possibilities are huge.
Of course, this leads to initial problems acclimatising yourself to it all. One pro tip I have is to hook up with at least one real-life mate and work together at it, as general rule of thumb means that learning the ropes with someone less likely to call you a tit if you make a mistake makes games more fun. Still, it took me a couple of hours at least to get into it, but once I did I didn’t look back. If you ever come across someone kneeling behind a tank frantically repairing it as it gets bombed to heck then that’s probably me.
Problems? A little harsh as it may be during beta stage to hold a game up on issues, there are a couple of things that will hopefully get sorted. The first is possibly due to the demand that the beta finds itself in right now, but most of the time it is a little tricky to get yourself into a lag-free server. Likewise, the game seems to run rather jerkily at times, which doesn’t seem to cure itself even if you experiment with graphical settings. You learn to work around these issues, but it’d be nice come release day if things were a heck of a lot smoother.
Another issue that can’t really be cured, and one that has irked many folks, is that the PC version does seem to suffer a little from consolitis. I personally had to whack the mouse sensitivity up a large degree to give myself a decent feel for movement, but initial experiences will seem a little sluggish to people. Again, it’s something you learn to live with, but it will annoy a few folks.
Overall though, the beta has given me more than enough to convert me into a Battlefield player, and given how narrow a selection it presents that’s no mean feat, especially when you consider how many FPS games we churn through here. Heck, if any multiplayer game can get me and Jay working as a cohesive unit then it must be something. See you on the front, and stay frosty.
