[360, PS3] BF:BC2 and BF 1943 online

The problem here is that vehicles basically eliminate a developers desire (or so it seems) to actually create a good ground infantry game. The Battlefield games are a prime example, the infantry SUCKS in them, it is absolutely horrible. That's the reason so many hardcore Counter-Strike, RTCW, and CoD don't want vehicles in the game.

 

Its amazing the transformation digital download content has undergone during the course of this generation. It all started off with something simple yet addictive in Geometry Wars, but it now looks to be quickly morphing into a legitamite platform to launch bite-size high quality titles. Just look at 2009, so far for major DLC releases we have GTA IV: Lost and the Damned, Battle Field 1943, Watchmen The End is Nigh, and potentially even Halo 3: ODST and a new Mass Effect expansion pack. I really like the idea of releasing higher quality titles for digital download around the $20 price point, it seems like a great way to get more content out their without having to commit to developing a full $60 game over the course of 3/4 years. It should be great for new IPs too, as publishers wont have to worry about sinking large budgets into an unproven franchise, but could rather release a smaller portion of the game to see how it sells and then decide to expand upon it later if the market reacts positively to it.

 

I don't disagree, I don't think that they'd improve the game. I still like BF, despite its broken hitboxes... and I think that removing prone from BF:BC (and hence removing stuff like the dolphin dive) helps DICE balance their gunplay. Not enough, maybe, but it's a start.

 

eh? My first digitally downloaded game was some ASCII based text adventure game that ran on an 8-bit 6502 based computer with 48K RAM. I digitally downloaded it in 1982 or 83... over a 300 bps analog MODEM from some Share-ware BBS run out of a guys home. Oh, it was saved on 5.25" floppy disk media that stored maybe 360KB of data, if I remember correctly... on a single side. Of course, I cut a write-enable hole in the sleeve so I could flip 'em and use the other side as well.

And, I used to walk to school in my days. Up-hill. Both ways.



Sorry about being factitious... I just find it amusing to hear that Geometry Wars started the games download evolution.

 

Never before this generation of home consoles have digital downloads accounted for anything, its undeniable. Sure you may have been able to download games from the internet onto your computer using various methods, and more recently a digital store through Steam, but nothing like XBLA or PSN has existed before on home consoles. Geometry Wars was the only good game on XBLA when it launched this gen from what I can remember, and perfectly exemplified the type of game Microsoft wanted developers to make with the initial 50mb they had placed on the Live Arcade. Its transformed from a download service comprising mainly of simple arcade games, to now holding high quality FPS, and 20 hour long expansion packs.

 

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The hit boxes in CS:S are worse than BF2. Actually BF2 doesn't seem to have a hit box at all, you actually have to hit the polygonal model, and the only one shot kill with a normal infantry weapon is a headshot. You don't hit the head, you don't have the one shot kill, hence the needs for alot of skill. As for the supposedly "broken" infantry combat, that's a load of bollocks. Sure the game has some glitches, but that doesn't really reflect on how infantry combat is on a pure basis. It's very well designed to make you get in a position and shoot out suppressing fire as well as making short bursts when actually trying to hit an enemy. Spraying doesn't do much unless you're really close to the target too. I also think it's somewhat dumb how in CoD2 and CoD4, pulling up the iron sights instantly makes you completely accurate even in full auto spraying out a full clip of ammo.

 

Worse in what regard? Much of the "issues" with Source engine hit boxes has been changed and debunked. Anyway, that's hardly what I mean by broken. You also seem to think being realistic is in anyway desirable in a game; it's not. The infantry gameplay in the game is completely pointless. Your role, in the grand scheme is pointless. Suppressing fire as a tactic in BF2? No, you're still going to run around and move up for the kill. The guns are so horribly inaccurate that the first person to bum rush the other wins. The abuse of dolphin diving and bunny hopping also hurt the game. They acknowledged this issue apparently in BF:BC.

This is a major issue when you consider not every player in the game can have a vehicle, let alone one of the truly useful aircraft in the game. The fact that much of the BF2 playing population would simply camp the helicopter or jets should be proof enough that most people didn't want to take part in the infantry play.

To be frank if you want my "real" taste you'd have to look at Soldier of Fortune 2 with the Real Damage mod. Fast movement, tight jumping, and a single burst kills you. That's all on the individual, I don't play FPS games to mess around and count on a tank or some spam to help me, I'm a serious competitor... sorry if that offends.

 

I get the VAST majority of my kills and points on foot. Yes the bunny hopping and dolphin diving is annoying but it's not as huge a deal for me as it doesn't stop me from getting them. And the guns are actually pretty well represented as far as accuracy is concerned. You'd be lucky to get the same accuracy in real life as in BF2. Just like you prefer your Real Damage mod, I love the BF2 Project Reality mod, where things are no where near as arcady as vanilla BF2.

I do love to take the jets, they are fun to fly, but it's extremely easy to make one small mistake, and the jet is done for, not to mention acquire in the first place, however as I said I make the absolute best out of infantry combat. I join a squad, team up and plan with them and execute the manuever to take the advantage in combat. This is where the strength of BF2 is in terms of satisfaction for me, something few other games have for me. At some point I want to get ArmA as well as I hear really plays out very well if one is looking for realism, and I'm interested in ArmA 2.

 

GDC Video demo

 

I dont understand why EA\DICE insits on making these piss poor arcade BF style games for the consoles.
Im sure if they actually made something similar to the brilliant BF2 pc games it would have sold very well.

What a ridiculous statement. CoD4 looked way better than BC and it runs at 60fps.

 

BC improved on BF2 in most ways that matter, though, especially for pub games. The only thing I've missed from BC is being able to rez fallen comrades. In all the other ways it's a more focused, less spammy game in which infantry isn't completely useless.

 

I hate BF:BC, for a couple of reasons.

1. The controls (especially the vehicle controls) are just terrible. Everything just feels slow and wonky. I'm not sure if this was done intentionally, or if DICE just doesn't get console controls. Regardless, the controls just suck imo and totally wreck the immersion for me. DICE is much better at mouse/keyboard controls, which is one of the reasons I think the PC versions just feel better and are more fun.

2. DICE just cannot seem to balance the game such that the three forms of combat (air, ground, and infantry) can coexist. Helicopters still dominate, but armor is just useless. Tanks/APCs are frustratingly difficult to control, their main guns are useless for anything other than a direct hit, and they basically have no defense against mortars and laser guided bombs (which two diffenent infantry classes can carry). Infantry combat seems better only because armor has been completely forsaken. It's only when you play COD4 that you realize just how terrible the infantry combat really is. BF2 on the PC had terrible infantry combat too, but at least the armor wasn't totally gimped
so if you scored a tank or APC you could still have some fun.

Really, I can understand how someone who loves infantry combat and hates vehicle combat would like BF:BC.

 

cool little teaser fro BF:BC2

 

That's essentially why BF:BC is better than BF2, IMO. In BF2 vehicles were too dominant. BF:BC removed airplanes, as modern airplanes just never worked well in BF2 (they removed them in 2142 actually) and weakened helicopters (though helicopters are still monstrous in the right hands, but flak is pretty effective and MGs are more effective at plinking them than they were in BF2). They also removed many ridiculous powers like 'repair-aura' engineers, even after nerfing it in 2142. Maybe it'd be interesting to return 2142's 'shield' mechanic to tanks, when dealing with laser-guided bombs. I thought it added an interesting bit of strategy.

The game is a lot less focused on vehicles, though a good tank player can still do a fair amount of damage and break apart a defensive line on maps that allow it. But by focusing combat into a single objective, you make every combat intense and interesting, unlike what you'd often have in BF2's bigger maps, with small squads playing musical chairs with the capture points while everyone else would wear down their tickets in some pointless location. And BF2's reliance on vehicles meant that if you couldn't get to one, you were going to perform somewhere between cannon fodder and second banana.

It's unrealistic, but it'd be interesting if a specialist's tracers could turn a demolition's AT weapon into an AA gun if used against a chopper. Maybe they can, I've never tried.

Naturally, this is all my opinion, but BF:BC is one of the most fun shooters I've played this generation and probably my favorite online game, even though on PS3 it seems like no one even knows what a mic is.

 

Yes BF:BC is great, definitely better than BF2, (anyone remember what used to happen when the opposing faction controlled all airbases?) Spawn...die....spawn....die etc. etc.

BF2142 was also great, cause the vehicles were weakened, it had a similar vibe to KZ2 actually. And those carrier assaults were a stroke of genius.

 

Spawning was gimped, squads were VERY much inferior especially chat, classes were neutered, there was a down sizing of vehcile variety, a broken circle of death mechanic, Goldrush was a distraction compared to Conquest (or better yet Frontlines), infantry weapons were initially woefully pathetic. BF:BC is the quenticential case of consolitis. It isn't a horrible game but from what I see in people's comments it is those who want it to be other games (or have had a hard time getting their head around the concept that if a vehicle, be it tank or aircraft, are squashing you you need to re-evaluate your role: your objective, your class, where you are spawning, your squad, etc to be successful.) Of course a big problem here is BF requires you to approach the game differently than mindless shooting as the game is team/objective centered to begin with and the team element isn't forced.

 

In conquest? In Goldrush, except for the maps that limit forward bases, you have about as many options as you do in BF2. There's no 'portable spawn point' powerups like in 2142, of course.

This is true. The way they did squads was fairly inexplicable -- it's really infuriating to fall into a squad with a sniper and being unable to spawn near the action because of it. Hopefully BC2 will improve on this.

Classes were buffed. MGs are more accurate, shotguns and SMGs are more deadly. All classes but assault have ways to deal with armor, and assault has a self-heal on a fast recharge. Support is better concentrated in one kit, anti-vehicle as well. Recon gained a radar and sniper rifles are pretty accurate even off the hip, if you can live without a reticle.

This is a good thing. Modern airplanes never worked well in BF2. Again, we didn't even have them in BF2142. So yeah, with that you lose the need for mobile AA (for all the 2 maps in BF2 that had one), and light tanks mostly replace APCs.

You mean circle-strafing? It's still BF -- aka circle strafing never worked well. What exactly is broken?

It's the other way around. Conquest's basic design was extremely simple, but just doesn't hold up -- something more like UT's own version, where owning nodes unlocks adjacent nodes would be interesting, but as it was, on the larger maps in BF2 all you had was people capturing points, running to the next while the opposing team did the same thing. It didn't lead to what's really interesting in the game, which is the chaotic fighting.

As for frontlines, I played the demo and was underwhelmed. I really don't get why it was supposed to be so good -- and the fact that a few reviewers I know who review games from Bizarro Earth enjoyed it gives me pause.

Maybe, but this is also the case in BF2. You have far more variety in unlocks, too, since there are so many more. In fact, I'd say that the default weapons in BC are better than those in BF2 if only because with the exception of the engineer, they're all the same across factions. Which was one of the more infuriating things about BF2, being stuck with the gimped specops gun while not on the US side.

Maybe in that it's harder to do a team-based game on console, since things are so chaotic. The only thing that I really miss is the ability to rez comrades. Otherwise, destructibility is a great new mechanic, it really opens up the maps and helps develop different strategies. Hopefully when BC2 comes out for PC as well it'll keep to tight maps and a lot of crazy confrontations. Maybe we'll get resurrection back (KZ2 has it, though so did QW:ET) and hopefully we'll get the ability to manage squads.

Who? There's a lot of people who want it to be BF2, and for that they can play BF2. BC is a much more infantry-based game, and that is a good thing. That's the way the design went. BF1942's success was large based on the novelty of vehicles on large maps. The underlying gameplay was always relatively weak. BF2 improved on this in large degree, but it was the same game, with some unsuccessful experiments (the commander) and some successful ones (persistent leveling up, player-run squads).

There's no reevaluation of roles when you deal with the fact that there's a handful of vehicles for the number of players on a map -- not everyone will get one, even on the vehicle-heavy maps. Up to BC, there's absolutely no reason NOT to take a vehicle (and in BC that's still true, but there are enough counters that it opens the possibility of success to infantry). BF2 had publically-accessible stats -- the K/D ratio of the top vehicle players was far above that of the top infantry players. Infantry was always there to be vehicle fodder, I'd even wager that by design. It took them a while to realize that if you're not the person in a vehicle it's just not that much fun.

Possibly, but I think BC took great strides in that direction, again, by focusing the action. Ideally, something like unreal tournament's warfare modes would be a superior option to conquest. But that'd require a team that understands the need to balance offense and defense. And no, you don't get that, not even on PC.

 

The Circle of Death concept is portrayed in the video TapIn posted. Most of your complaints actually tie in to the fact BF is about using the right tool for the job and every method has a counter-method. e.g. Jeeps are intended to be defenseless to jets for a reason. BF1942 sold over 4m copies and had a successful formula. I find it interesting they feel compelled to abandon such and become a generic everyconsoleshooter.

Original BF1942 box art as an example of the circle of death.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/battlefield-1942/cover-art/gameCoverId,14527/
http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/battlefield-1942/cover-art/gameCoverId,14528/

 

Look at those two pictures. What's missing from them? Funny how infantry doesn't even factor into that equation. Funny how most people in a map will be infantry.

On top of that, if you want to talk in practical terms, the 'circle of death' wasn't in BF2 either. If you want to talk theoretically, then BC also has one.

And it's really, really not fair to call it a 'generic everyconsoleshooter'. What other games are there like BF:BC? Frontlines, a game from a team that for a short while was actually part of DICE? Other Battlefield games? What games can't be considered a 'generic everyconsoleshooter' if BC is one?

Finally BF1942's popularity doesn't mean the game wasn't flawed. Again, DICE must've thought they could progress the game, considering all the changes put in BF2 and later in BF2142. And I do think these two games were superior to their predecessors in many interesting ways (each with their own serious flaws, of course).

 

BC2 SP preview

Eurogamer preview