Battlefield: Bad Company Role Call and Catch All (X360)

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Game is out! The known enlisted are below:
booty (XBL: Stilgar Black)
Edgar_Newt (Edgar Newt)
NomadHeretic (NomadHeretic)
jakeleg (jakelegg)
Roxxouse (Roxxouse)
TrashiDawa (Trashi Dawa)
AcidCat (Boot Stackhead)
Donan (DonanGWJ )
Sinatar (Sinatar)
firesloth (firesloth)
Nei (Nei HD)
Thin_J (Thin J)
JimmDogg (JimmDogg76 )
Dr_J (Proud Helios)
bennard (bennard)
Certis (Certis)
Island Dog (?)
Sithcundman (Sithcundman0
SpyNavy (SpyNavy)
LobsterMobster (Liberty Lobster)
Podunk (CrankyBaby)
Not playing but is an obnoxious spellchecker: Fedaykin98 (Fedaykin98)

Demo Impressions from before:

Single player is only good for two things: learning the controls for multiplayer, and playing around with the engine without getting shot. The engine is a one trick pony, but, oh my,what a trick. Simply put, you can blow holes in buildings. Enemy runs into a building for cover? Blast open the wall with a grenade launcher.

Multiplayer? After previous stillborn console attempts, I was floored about how well they captured the PC Battlefield feel. There are times in the demo where it feels like the best moment in Karrkland, but better. The destruction features really keep the map fresh. When the other team has the other point nailed down from a building, simply poke holes in the building. The maps themselves feel different as the battle goes on, completed with craters from the artillery. There has been some streamlining to be sure (crouching, but no prone), but most of it works well in service to game balance. The one shot sniper kills are fine, but no squad picking (it's done automatically from what I can tell) and no revives are missed. The new game mode works fine in practice, even if the premise is nonsensical (blow up boxes to get the gold?).

Anyway, I played way more of this than I was expecting. Anyone else try it out? I'm very curious about what the core Battlefield group here thinks of this (Richy, Lobster, Swamp, Trowan, Jarhead, etc), as I could easily see it having more legs than BF2142, which was my favorite to date.

The console Battlefield 2 was not stillborn.

Based on the demo, I found the singleplayer interesting enough to warrent an eventual rent, but the multiplayer doesn't seem to have anything to do with the traditional Battlefield objective system. Their replacement is interesting, but the performance was ugly.

I've been enjoying it, when I get on a server that's not too laggy, which happens about 50% of the time. It definitely has a better gun feel then previous Battlefield games (any platform). I'm a little disappointed that they seem to have gone smaller in terms of their level size, although I guess it's necessary considering the player count limit. The destruction adds an interesting wrinkle, although I find the terrain deformation to be a bit annoying when trying to navigate.

I've got it preordered, and will definitely be picking it up on release. I just hope that my experience is more generally lag-free on release, although I'm not sure that it will be.

booty wrote:

There are times in the demo where it feels like the best moment in Karrkland, but better.

Great googly moogly.

Danjo Olivaw wrote:

...but the multiplayer doesn't seem to have anything to do with the traditional Battlefield objective system. Their replacement is interesting, but the performance was ugly.

I assumed it just wasn't included in the demo, but my research says it's not in the shipping game. It'll be patched in later. The strength of the system is that battles are more focused and lessens the need for a commander. It does not the diminish the role of coordinated movements and classes on tactical battlefield.

Fedaykin98 wrote:
booty wrote:

There are times in the demo where it feels like the best moment in Karrkland, but better.

Great googly moogly.

Aye, and I don't say those word lightly either.

Color me a sad panda that there isn't more interest in this one. I could easily get into this with Goodjers, but I'm wary of plunging into multiplayer only (for me) title with just the unwashed masses. However, it worked OK this weekend. Hmm...

I found myself liking the demo, though I couldn't figure out why! I wouldn't put it up there with Karrkland, myself, but I have had a good deal of fun with it. Some of the controls feel a bit odd (button choices, mostly). The auto-squad assignment is a little annoying if you think about playing in pub matches with friends. The performance has been good for me, by and large.

I don't know if other folks have tried out the artillery or not. It seems a wee bit overpowered, but it's a good deal of fun to pick out targets from an above view, watch your Howitzer go off, and then see the shells decimating the enemy. Good way to spot for your team, as well.

I was really doing a number on the other team using the artie. When we switched to defending, I pretty early on took a tank over there and destroyed their Howitzer, just because I didn't want the other team to have as much fun as I did.

I may have to give this a rental.

I thought the same about the arty, but in the matches I played people learned quickly that arty == free knife kills.

I was pretty impressed by the voicework for some reason. It's technically very tight. I'm not digging the facial animations, though. Voices that expressive are hampered by the static faces, unfortunately. I really enjoyed the fact that they respawn you and leave the fight as you left it. No endless attempts at clearing the TV station here.

This feels a little like Three Kings for the game market, and that ain't so bad.

I only played a bit of multi. It felt like it captured Battlefield pretty well for the console. I did, however, notice a bit of an issue with the environment. I drove a tank through some palm trees, they clipped into my vehicle, then they broke. Very clumsy.

I will be picking this one up, day one if I can.

Spaz wrote:

I drove a tank through some palm trees, they clipped into my vehicle, then they broke. Very clumsy.

Oops...I have to say, I love looking over the landscape and seeing the tops of the palms broken off from tank fire.

firesloth wrote:

The auto-squad assignment is a little annoying if you think about playing in pub matches with friends.

FYI you can pre-form a squad with your friends before enterint the game if you want to stick together. Downsides are that when you join a game in progress you might not be placed together right away; you might have to wait until the next round starts to all be together. Other downside is that you can only organize 4 people this way. There's no way to have a room full of friends and then split yourselves into squads to bring into a match.

I've been having fun playing the demo the last few days. Of course it's a step down from CoD4 in terms of pure infantry gun combat, but the vehicles make up the difference. The last Battlefield game I played was BF2, so it's been a while. Not sure I really like the scaled-down feel, but it does keep the battle pretty focused on one area - though blowing up a crate of gold is a bizarre choice for a gameplay goal, not sure why they didn't just keep the standard "capture the point" system - or maybe that's in a different game mode?

I really got Battlefield vibes when I went to fly a chopper. Glad to see some things never change!

Perhaps we should schedule a night to try the demo?

Hmm...a new feature for Xbox Live 3.0 (next console, I assume) has just occurred to me: Party mode that starts outside of a game, and translates into basically any multiplayer game. Kind of like how MS mandated voice chat and made it standard, let me stick with my friends and make it make sense. Every game should work as well as Halo 2 (2!!!!) and GTA4. So standardize it. Let us join games as a group. If we have a party of 10 trying to play Gears, pop up a message telling us that too many people are in the group at present. Let us leave one game and join another title altogether in a party the whole time. Etc. etc.

AcidCat wrote:

though blowing up a crate of gold is a bizarre choice for a gameplay goal, not sure why they didn't just keep the standard "capture the point" system - or maybe that's in a different game mode?

From what I read the game was initially going to have just the gold crate game mode, but enough people complained about the lack of the traditional 'conquest' mode that they said they'd patch it in soon after release.

I agree the gold crate mechanic seems a little odd at first, but in practice it seems to play out like a bigger contiguous version of the Dustbowl map in Team Fortress 2--which I'd say is probably the most popular TF2 map.

I've never played this one before, but am very likely to pick this up. Maybe it will rekindle my interest in multiplayer gaming! my GT is tanaraq when things get started.

Yeah what do pc BAttlefield fans think? This could sell me a 360 if it is the real deal.

Buying a 360 is its own reward; I wouldn't buy one if it was going to be a waste if GWJ doesn't adopt one particular game.

I tried the demo, to me it is not as good as a PC Battlefield game. I think Frontlines on the 360 is actually more fun than what I played in the demo. I'll wait to see who picks it up before deciding to buy it, 360 games seem to have a very short life here if they don't "hit" right away and I can't see picking it up just for the single player campaign.

trowan wrote:

360 games seem to have a very short life here if they don't "hit" right away and I can't see picking it up just for the single player campaign.

There ought to be terminology for discussing whether a game on any platform is adopted by the GWJ hive-mind. I'm going to go ahead and call that status "blessed by Stan", although other religious language may be fun as well.

I was just discussing with my IRL friends how we really need another universal game that catches fire and is played by nearly everyone. The last time this really happened for us was BF2, which was clearly touched by Stan.

This space reserved for demo impression

booty wrote:

Anyway, I played way more of this than I was expecting. Anyone else try it out? I'm very curious about what the core Battlefield group here thinks of this (Richy, Lobster, Swamp, Trowan, Jarhead, etc), as I could easily see it having more legs than BF2142, which was my favorite to date.

Unless it comes out on the PC I'll make the call that it is going to have a short run. I've tried numerous times to get in and enjoy shooters on the 360 but so far no luck. I think its the really crappy quality of Live's communication that does it in for me. Why suffer through that when I can use Vent? Plus are there any drivable vehicles? From my reading it doesn't appear so. That's what has always set the BF series apart and I think made the games last as long as they have. Tired of getting sniped? Hop in a tank!

There are vehicles. The demo has APCs, tanks, jeeps, boats, and a helicopter.

Thanks Yellow! Perhaps I'll should fire up my 360 and give the demo a try.

Yellow5 wrote:

There are vehicles. The demo has APCs, tanks, jeeps, boats, and a helicopter.

Is there a way to remap the controls? I was driving some tanks & jeeps last night, and the default layout just seemed idiotic to me - left trigger to go forward, left should button to go backward?

RichyRambo wrote:

I think its the really crappy quality of Live's communication that does it in for me. Why suffer through that when I can use Vent?

Really? I've always thought Live's voice was great. The fact that it's in every game is fantastic, and the quality is solid, although granted not as good as Vent.

trowan wrote:
Yellow5 wrote:

There are vehicles. The demo has APCs, tanks, jeeps, boats, and a helicopter.

Is there a way to remap the controls? I was driving some tanks & jeeps last night, and the default layout just seemed idiotic to me - left trigger to go forward, left should button to go backward?

I think you can change it so the left stick controls forward and backward movement as well as turning, but I think that's it.

The left index finger gas and brake pedals seem odd at first, but I think it works really well when you're driving something with weapons. The right trigger is the main weapon, right bumper is a special ability like tank smoke. Once you get used to it, it makes sense to have movement on one finger and weaponry on the other. Then it's only natural that weaponless vehicles keep the same movement scheme.

I am a PC gamer and I just bought a 360. Therefore this really is my first FPS that I have tried on the Xbox. I suck at aiming with the controller but that controls seemed to be alright.

The graphics however were so damn blurry. Everything seem to have this weird noise to it. So it was alright. After playing ALL the battlefield on the PC this seems like a step down.

Fedaykin98 wrote:
RichyRambo wrote:

I think its the really crappy quality of Live's communication that does it in for me. Why suffer through that when I can use Vent?

Really? I've always thought Live's voice was great. The fact that it's in every game is fantastic, and the quality is solid, although granted not as good as Vent.

Maybe if MS kicked the codec up a notch I'd like it better. To me all the voices sound muddy and tinny and I have hard time telling who is who when it gets crazy. Another peeve is that you are automatically linked up chat-wise with everyone in the game. I'm a curmudgeon and only want to talk with my friends, not filthy hoi polloi I'm playing against. The damn program allows you to have a private chat with one person, what about making it a party chat so I can get all my homies in on it? (I think this is coming in the next dashboard...)

Ultimately, my love-hate with 360 boils down to how it schismed the gang I would game with. Now folks are split between 360 and PC with the end result that we don't play as much as we used to.

TempestBlayze wrote:

I am a PC gamer and I just bought a 360. Therefore this really is my first FPS that I have tried on the Xbox. I suck at aiming with the controller but that controls seemed to be alright.

The graphics however were so damn blurry. Everything seem to have this weird noise to it. So it was alright. After playing ALL the battlefield on the PC this seems like a step down.

Yeah, I wasn't too impressed with the graphics either. It's not like DICE isn't capable of pushing some amazing visuals on consoles (e.g. Rallisport Challange 1 & 2 on the xbox). Did a different team make this?

firesloth wrote:

I don't know if other folks have tried out the artillery or not. It seems a wee bit overpowered, but it's a good deal of fun to pick out targets from an above view, watch your Howitzer go off, and then see the shells decimating the enemy. Good way to spot for your team, as well.

I only put in a little over an hour but I think if it couldn't be continually fired it wouldn't be such a big deal but it seemed like every 15 seconds more insta kill anything artillery rounds would barrage the hotspots.

If the multi-player levels in the release are significantly better then the one in the demo I may rent or buy this one, but as of now it feels inferior in almost every way to BF2. Why didn't they just port BF2 and add destructible environments?

Fedaykin98 wrote:

The fact that it's in every game is fantastic, and the quality is solid, although granted not as good as Vent.

It reminds me of what it used to be like to talk with people on overseas telephone lines. Workable, but playing on vent is no comparison. How else to get full high fidelity on Jarhead's rendition of "White Dragon"? Or the garbling sound someone makes when you're giving them the bag? These things require stereo and a lack of static.

I'm also with Rich regarding the open channel and pubtards. I'm sure many of them are nice people, but I'd just as soon limit chat to the group I'm playing with.

Funkenpants wrote:

I'm also with Rich regarding the open channel and pubtards. I'm sure many of them are nice people, but I'd just as soon limit chat to the group I'm playing with.

You can set voice chat to 'friends only,' I think.

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