Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Catch-All

If a huge GWJ contingent goes PC, I'll upgrade to play them. Not sure how this will feel on the 360 (particularly the choppers).

Day one for me too. Haven't decided which version but probably 360 due to friends.

Does anyone know if this is basically "Battlefield 3" re-branded or if that is also in the works?

EvilDead wrote:

Day one for me too. Haven't decided which version but probably 360 due to friends.

Does anyone know if this is basically "Battlefield 3" re-branded or if that is also in the works?

BF3 is separate.

cube wrote:

There have been SP preview videos? Everything on the site is multiplayer.

Yeah, I'm referring to the more recent multiplayer vids, which are full of authentic battlefield chatter like "HOLY F*CK!"

I found it a bit startling after the mostly "T for Teen" nature of the first BC game. It doesn't bother me, really, but based on the promo stuff it does look like DICE is dialing down the goofiness a bit.

Of course it is coming from EA, creators of some of the most crass and obnoxious video game marketing since Daikatana.

edit: from what I understand, BF3 was announced separately and is a different game that is still in development.

Gumbie wrote:
EvilDead wrote:

Day one for me too. Haven't decided which version but probably 360 due to friends.

Does anyone know if this is basically "Battlefield 3" re-branded or if that is also in the works?

BF3 is separate.

Well that makes it easy for me:

BF: BC2 = 360

BF3 = PC

In, on both PC and 360.

Have they even officially announced Battlefield 3 yet? I couldn't find anything, just rumors that it is being worked on along with BC2.

RichyRambo wrote:

Have they even officially announced Battlefield 3 yet? I couldn't find anything, just rumors that it is being worked on along with BC2.

Some EA suit said he saw it when visiting DICE. Is BF:BC1 worth a singleplayer playthrough if I can find a cheap copy?

Scratched wrote:
RichyRambo wrote:

Have they even officially announced Battlefield 3 yet? I couldn't find anything, just rumors that it is being worked on along with BC2.

Some EA suit said he saw it when visiting DICE. Is BF:BC1 worth a singleplayer playthrough if I can find a cheap copy?

DS recommended it to me the other day, so played through the demo today. I was looking for a shooter to download onto my 360 hard drive. BF:BC is $20, and seems to be what I am looking for. If I get plenty of fun out of this, then I'll probably be up for BC2.

firesloth wrote:
DSGamer wrote:
some other zach wrote:

I'll also be downloading this when I get home.

MW2 is driving me up the wall so hopefully a multiplayer game with some semblance of team play will make me happy.

PSN: alamedarchy

Hey, I'm not alone. I'm playing BF:BC for this very reason, right now. Played MW2, didn't like the lack of team play. BF:BC2 is day one for me.

I love me some BF:BC. I'll by this day 1 for the 360. Hell, if DS is playing, it may be time for me to dust off the original for some MP action. If I can tear myself away from Borderlands...

I'm playing all the time right now. This is my MP game of choice, currently.

Eurogamer posted its first impressions with the PS3 beta.

Eurogamer wrote:

Jumping from Modern Warfare 2 to Bad Company 2 isn't recommended. While both are broadly similar in concept - modern military shooters set in an imaginary land war between America and Russia - the difference in style couldn't be more pronounced. Infinity Ward's big-bollocked blockbuster has the bone-rattling volume and GRAAAAAGH KILLING SPREE! adrenaline rush, but try those bombastic Hollywood heroics over in DICE's theatre of war and you'll be shot to ribbons before you can say "danger close".
More...

The single player is good. Not great, but good. It's got a bit of humor in it, which is good. It's got all sorts of vehicle sections -- these are actually good, though, not like the Gears of War vehicle sections.

The MP is more fun, though! There's still a good community on BF:BC. At least there was a month or two ago.

firesloth wrote:

The single player is good. Not great, but good. It's got a bit of humor in it, which is good. It's got all sorts of vehicle sections -- these are actually good, though, not like the Gears of War vehicle sections.

The MP is more fun, though! There's still a good community on BF:BC. At least there was a month or two ago.

There still is. Seem like great people. They play the game the right way, teamwork, etc. I had assumed it had died when 1943 came out and that I'd missed the window. Happy to say that isn't the case.

larrymadill wrote:

This sounds like such a douche-y FPS Centric Gamer thing to ask but anyone know if BF: BC 2 will run at 60fps? At least in multiplayer?

I bet it will on PC.

This sounds like such a douche-y FPS Centric Gamer thing to ask but anyone know if BF: BC 2 will run at 60fps? At least in multiplayer? That was my objection to the first game (well that and the terrible single player) -- felt slow. Slower than Halo even.

I'll probably end up giving Bad Company 2 at least a rental. Would be nice to have a second goto Multiplayer game with a decent community in the library. I had hoped 1943 would've filled that void with a constant stream of re-worked maps but that never materialized.

I'm pretty sure this will be my multiplayer game next year. This was surprisingly fun! I was going in with the expectation that it would be very similar to BF 1943, but the only thing they have in common is the engine.

I'm very impressed with the "feel" of everything. The guns have a great sense of kick, and great sounds. The game seems to reward you for burst firing, flanking, and advancing with great care. You can only take a few hits before dying. Despite that, it is very much an arcade-y shooter, though, so don't come into this expecting PR mod.

There are four classes: Assault, Engineer, Medic, and Recon (sniper). Medic still seems to be "points-whore" class, which most of the people in the server seemed to be playing. The medic has a LMG, which makes him sort of a powerhouse brute charging forward with a 100-round magazine. I easily got the top score on my team playing as medic and doing a lot of revives and tossing medpacks, and going 28-17 KDR.

I tried every class except for the Recon class, and felt each was useful. I think they might have to do some balancing to make the RPG more deadly to vehicles, since it seems to take 3 or 4 to bring down an MBT, and the medic will definitely need some tuning since it's so easy to be a one man wrecking crew. Medic should probably get an assault rifle instead of an LMG.

I haven't gotten a chance to try any of the vehicles, except for the heavy tanks (M1A1 and T90). The tanks can soak up a lot of damage, but a team that keeps a few engineers with RPGs, in addition to its tanks, won't have much trouble with tanks that advance too quickly.

There's a rewards and unlocks system in the beta, and it only took me three rounds to advance to level 10 and unlock several weapons, including the SAW and M1911. Weapons unlocks, levels, and rewards come very quickly, and you're almost always earning some sort of achievement during matches, at least in the early game.

The graphics leave something to be desired. Aesthetically, they look great, but the bloom effect is way too bright. I've messed with the brightness and contrast in-game as well as on my TV, and it still seems blinding sometimes - especially when you exit buildings. The shadows are very jaggy, although I'm aware PS3 doesn't really do proper anti-aliasing. Still, no excuse for the humongous shadow textures. The guns also don't look very good, especially from the third person perspective.

I hope to see some of you in the beta, it's a lot of fun. This will certainly be my main shooter in 2010, and I don't think it would be a far stretch to say this is a spiritual successor to BF2.

Scratched wrote:
RichyRambo wrote:

Have they even officially announced Battlefield 3 yet? I couldn't find anything, just rumors that it is being worked on along with BC2.

Some EA suit said he saw it when visiting DICE. Is BF:BC1 worth a singleplayer playthrough if I can find a cheap copy?

I would say definitely yes. I really enjoyed it, the story doesn't overextend itself in any parts and the characters, while not particularly original, are still a lot of fun to be around. Even though they're obviously lifted directly out of certain movies, DICE still managed to characterize them so that they weren't just teammates (e.g. Rainbow Six) but good companions (e.g. Alyx). It's a nice light action caper, and a great antidote to, say, Modern Warfare 2.

The actual moment-to-moment action is here and there. The AI is marginally less stupid than the AI in BF1942: their tactical movement consists of getting to cover, standing up, and crouching back down. They won't push forward or fall back, flank, hop into vehicles, or do anything else but stand in one place or futilely run and back and forth. It's not a tactical brain-bender. It is, however, a hell of a lot of fun to blow sh*t up, and the maps are huge, open, and quite beautiful in my opinion.

And the sound in the game deserves special mention, and you might not notice it in frenetic multiplayer. Quiet moments in singleplayer give you the opportunity to hear all the reverb effects, whether you're tromping around in an abandoned house that sounds so perfectly abandoned (there is one, in fact, repeated ad infinitum), or hearing gunshots echo across a kilometre-wide field.

Even specialer mention, sound also travels at the speed of sound! Launch some mortars or call in an airstrike on a target a few hundred metres away and the sound will rumble in well after you see the explosions. Distant sniper fire will ring out after you see their rifles recoil through your scope. So well done, BF:BC holds a special place in my heart just for that.

I feel like they've taken a few steps back.

The colors are much more washed out, giving the game a more "realistic" look and feel but also a less interesting one, IMO.

Artillery is gone. Instead there are UAVs that can call in simple missile strikes, which seem about on par with the anti-tank missile the sniper class had in the first game.

On that note, tanks seem FAR more troublesome. The sniper used to be very efficient at taking them out, or a good artillery strike could take out one or two at once. No longer.

Mortar Strike has been moved to Recon. I'm sad to see that go, as I loved using that as support in the first game. It's yet another reason to play sniper, and one of the biggest problems with the first game is that everyone wanted to be a sniper, sitting back and getting a kill or two now and then but doing very little to actually help.

The unlock system is far more linear now. Instead of getting points to unlock what you like, you unlock weapons and items in a linear fashion depending on which class you're playing (with vehicles counting as a separate class). I can see why they did it but it prevents people from playing how they like right off the bat. The class system on the whole seems to have been simplified, which seems to be a pretty steady trend for the Battlefield franchise, and a real shame.

People are still idiots. I still had to go lone wolf because I couldn't stand listening to my squadmates. Vehicles still drive off with only one person in them. Tanks still run away from engineers that are repairing them.

Worst of all, in their eagerness to make buildings fully destructible they actually seem to have gutted the "tactical destruction" feature. So that the entire map isn't flattened in the first two minutes, buildings are FAR more durable now. My tank couldn't drive through a thin concrete wall, for instance, even after blasting it wide open. In the first game there were very few walls a tank couldn't plow through, making for some great surprise attacks. I've also found a surprising number of structures and features are totally non-destructible.

That said, it is still pretty good and I'll probably get it on the PC. Destroying stuff is still fun and the sound is spectacular. It's so good it really reminds me of how lackluster Call of Duty 6's tinny explosions seemed.

LobsterMobster wrote:

People are still idiots. I still had to go lone wolf because I couldn't stand listening to my squadmates. Vehicles still drive off with only one person in them. Tanks still run away from engineers that are repairing them.

Agreed, and the squad system feels underdeveloped. I was playing with a couple friends tonight, and some a-hat joined up in the 4th slot in our squad, and sat there the entire time with an open mic. All we could hear were his breath, his dog barking, and the game sounds from his speakers being fed back into his mic for an entire round. There's no option to mute, no option to kick or votekick, and the only way we could get rid of him was for one of us to leave, start a new squad, and invite everyone in.

Why not just include a mute button in the squad menu? Am I missing something?

Although I will admit, when you have some friends, things can really click. Especially if you share a vehicle or complement each others classes. We were consistently scoring at the very top of the leaderboard each round, and it was a lot of fun even when we lost as a team.

Speaking of losing, it is very easy to be on the wrong end of a whooping stick in this game. It's true for all multiplayer FPS, but this Rush mode is so linear that when you're getting rolled, you really feel it.

It's still a beta right?

So I'm hoping you're letting DICE know about your thoughts on the game...

I haven't been able to get into the closed forums. Still working on that.

And the sound in the game deserves special mention, and you might not notice it in frenetic multiplayer.

I thought the sound in the first game was great. I loved that all the battlefield sounds you heard were all due to the sounds created by the players, no canned background.

jbavon wrote:

It's still a beta right?

So I'm hoping you're letting DICE know about your thoughts on the game...

Most of my problems have been around since the first game, and people complained about them very vocally. If DICE hasn't fixed them yet, they're either low priority or filed under "not a problem."

firesloth wrote:
And the sound in the game deserves special mention, and you might not notice it in frenetic multiplayer.

I thought the sound in the first game was great. I loved that all the battlefield sounds you heard were all due to the sounds created by the players, no canned background.

I too loved the sound from the first one. The ambient sound is some of the best I've heard in a multiplayer game.

Some shameless self promotion here, but I penned a psuedo-review for this on TacticalGamer.com that may be of interest to some of you. I've put in several hours and tried to write some basic reflections.

[Linky]

Anyone hear anything about BF3? I'm real wary about picking this game up because the first one on the 360 was a disaster from my point of view. Absolutely hated it.

Are there going to be a beta for other platforms beyond the PS3?

PC beta is scheduled to start "early 2010." Probably January.

PC system requirements were released today:

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, 4GB for Disc Version (BF1943)

Recommended Frostbite PC Specifications for BFBC2 & BF1943
Processor: Quadcore
Main memory: 2GB
Graphics card: GeForce GTX 260
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, 4GB for Disc Version (BF1943)

ranalin wrote:

Anyone hear anything about BF3?

Nothing official although it keeps appearing now and then in the company's financial and employee portfolio postings.

Evo wrote:

Some shameless self promotion here, but I penned a psuedo-review for this on TacticalGamer.com that may be of interest to some of you. I've put in several hours and tried to write some basic reflections.

[Linky]

Nice write-up, thanks!

Double post!