The only time it's okay to be a gold digger.
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Battlefield: Bad Company beta
Battlefield: Bad Company multiplayer beta impressionsI was lucky enough to get my hands on a Battlefield: Bad Company beta key. The overall excitement isn't there as it was when the Halo 3 multiplayer beta was released but it is still cool to play a game that is currently in development. Being a blogger for the LTM doesn't have all the privileges that an employee of IGN or Gamespot so I have to take what I can get.
Battlefield: Bad Company is the next iteration in the Battlefield series. The beta consists of one multiplayer mode and two maps. One map takes place in an arid middle-eastern setting and the other in a dark European village. When a game starts up you play as either an attacker or defender. Attackers must destroy crates of gold and defenders must protect the crates. I don't want to waste time explaining the game mode or what certain things mean. Check out this trailer and some of your basic questions should be answered. This link also has a more detailed account of everything the beta has to offer.
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/862/862033p1.html
Blowing things up is cool. While firing my grenade launcher at an enemy hiding inside a house, the entire side of the structure was blown to pieces. Instead of finishing him off, I just stood there watching the debris hit the ground and staring at the hole that I had just created. Meanwhile I was cut down by the dummy I was trying to kill. There's nothing like running with your squad toward an objective, weaving in and out of building and through alleys, while the buildings all around you are being reduced to rubble.
As far as bugs go, I didn't notice many. I've been cruising around the forums to see what other people have noticed about the game, whether it be glitches or gameplay issues. From the amount that I have played, which isn't that much, I have found a few things that caught my attention. For one, the knife seems to be a little unbalanced. It was a little odd that I had to shoot a wooden fence about 10 to 20 times to destroy it yet it only took two swipes from my knife to literally explode it.
The player damage seems like it needs to be tweaked a little. The sniper rifle can bring a guy down if you shoot him in the foot but you have to empty half a magazine to kill a guy with your assault rifle. Grenade and rocket damage seems to be a little weak too, or maybe it is the area of effect that is the problem. After firing a grenade from a rifle mounted grenade launcher, which detonated at the bad guys feet, some friends and I were surprised to find the guy still running around like nothing had happened. After firing another grenade round directly into the enemies chest, killing him, we debated if a grenade exploded in my kitchen, would it kill us in the living room. Keep in mind I live in a condo so the distance from the kitchen to the living room is about five feet. I would have to say, if a grenade went off anywhere in my house, bad things would happen.
Weapon selection and mechanics have been ruined for every game that succeeds Call of Duty 4. COD4 has set a new precedent, so every game that follows will be compared too it. Although Battlefield is a different game with a different look, it will be compared to COD4. The ability to select and create your own class by choosing what weapons you want and what accessories you want to include is an excellent system and should be included in first person shooters. So what if a game copies a mechanic from another game. It works. The weapon selection and class customization is pretty limited from what I could see. You select a class and that is what you are stuck with. For example the assault class has an assault riffle with a grenade launcher attached. The demolition class outfits you with a shotgun and a rocket launcher. That's cool, but what if I don't want a shotgun to go along with a rocket launcher. I need to have choices.
One of the game's features, that I enjoyed, was the addition of kits that would drop after a dude was killed. When you customize your weapons in the pre-game kit selection menu, you are literally given a kit that includes your main weapon. So, when you die, you drop your kit, in the form of a duffle bag. It is a way to choose different weapons while playing in a match. When you kill someone, a giant duffle bag is ejected from the body. It's funny when you first see it. The kit needs to be a different shape because I don't think I'll be able to get over the site of a giant bag magically expelling itself from a lifeless body, flying through the air.
Graphical issues will be fixed I'm sure but the most important aspect of a game is how it plays. So, no bullet holes appearing when you shoot a wall is fine though it would be nice to have them.
EA has decided to include a number of guns that are available on Xbox Live Marketplace for a price. Some will be free and others will be included in the game's Gold Edition. EA says that the guns will not make the game unbalanced so buy them if you like. Some people will say that everything should be included in the game when it ships. The cost of a game should end when you walk out of the store. The only time it is okay to charge for game content is for new multiplayer maps. As long as people continue to pay for obscure items on XBLM, companies will continue to charge for them. Don't spend money on things intentionally left out of a game.
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