When grading video games I grade on a scale from 1 to 5, whole numbers only, no decimals, final destination. Here's what they all mean:
1 - This game has absolutely no positive elements and should be avoided at all costs
2 - This game has only one or very few positive elements, is largely overwhelmed by negative elements.
3 - The game is fun, but may be missing features that would improve the experience. Fans of the genre would enjoy it.
4 - An excellent title. People not normally fans on the genre could use this game as an introduction.
5 - An instant classic.
Wednesday 4 May 2011
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
At time of writing I have invested 10 days, 22 hours and 53 minutes in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and reached rank 44 of 50. It's got quite a steep learning curve, an overall kill to death ratio of under 1.00 is expected for the first 20 or so, players don't actually unlock all the weapons and upgrades until their rank reaches the low twenties. Bad Company 2 contains all the generic features that attempt to create realism like blood on the screen effects and limiting the amount of weapons the player can carry, but yet allows player health to regenerate.
I never really understood regenerating health in shooters. At least in Halo it made sense; your health didn't regenerate, your shield did. The player retained all damage taken after their shields went down. But in a pseudo-realistic modern day war simulator, soldiers losing half their fucking torso to a grenade and regrowing it in half a minute never made any sense to me. It breaks the feeble attempt at realism that the blood splatter on your face is supposed to create, and just encourages camping. I don't have a problem with camping in games like Team Fortress 2, the map design facilitates multiple entryways to just about every point in the map, but in BC2 it's surprisingly difficult to take down that stupid fucker holed up in a building with a grenade launcher.
DICE did a reasonable attempt at balancing this however, by making player health incredibly low. In general, 4 to 5 clean hits on someone from medium range will kill them, give or take depending on your kit. Most assault rifles turn soldiers to Swiss cheese incredibly easily, while sub machine guns appear to fire paint balls. I understand that's because they fire lower caliber rounds, and a lesser damage makes sense, but it's fucking ridiculous sometimes. Sniping was implemented fairly well too, bullet drop is very noticeable and the scope of most sniper rifles floats up and down to simulate the movement caused by breathing in real life. Two guns however, namely the GOL sniper magnum and SVU, do not suffer from this effect, making them ideal sniping weapons. Sniping is rarely a problem in most games, it's just that the class seems to attract mentally retarded brazillians.
Bad Company 2 is a squad-based shooter that relies heavily on teamwork. It's sad that there are so many people that don't understand this, and even more sad is the fact that I always get assigned to their team. Players storming into enemy occupied strongholds constantly, and have the nerve to blame me for "not covering them" or something else equally stupid. Each class, or "kit" as they're referred to in game, has one or two "gadgets" that do something to help either yourself or others. Assaults can drop ammo for themselves and others, medics can drop health kits and revive dead teammates, engineers can repair friendly vehicles with their repair tool and recons can throw a motion mine that reveals moving enemies within a 20 foot radius. You'd be surprised how few players actually use any of these things, even though they get points for tossing around ammo, health, repairs and mines everywhere. I blame this partially on players just generally being stupid and partially for the existence of Call of Duty. Battlefield does not reward players for being giant fuckheads and charging into enemy territory and holding down left click. Well it does, but it takes 3 kills to get the same amount of points as capturing a control point, so it just rewards being a nice guy and giving ammo to everyone and capturing points. Good medics get obscenely large scores almost every round because healing a squad of players can net upwards of 400 points: equivalent to 8 kills. A common problem for most medics however, is that seeing the health of your teammates takes an unnecessarily long time, making it hard for medics to tell when you need a health kit.
The game comes with an integrated "Socialize" button, which can be used for a multitude of functions, including asking medics for heals. When pressed on friendly assault players, you ask for ammo, medics for medkits, and engineers for repairs. Pressing the socialize key when pointing at an enemy "spots" them, which places them on the minimap of all your teammates to assist in killing them. However, all of these things run on an incredibly useless and infuriating timer, so you may spend a good 30 seconds trying to spot someone or ask for a medkit while you mash Q (the default spot key) in frustration. I can only assume the timer was introduced to stop players from spamming spot to get lots of points (you get 20 points if someone kills an enemy you spotted) but you shouldn't penalize players for trying to help their team take out enemies.
The main feature of the Bad Company series is the destroyable scenery, which is executed surprisingly well. Hand Grenades, 40mm Grenades, C4, Mortars and rockets all destroy most scenery they hit, and buildings which lack integral walls will fall down and kill everyone inside them. This does make dealing with campers much easier than in other traditional shooters, but turns maps into soldier-fed meat grinders after all the cover has been blown to bits at the end of the round. Still, the holes are pre-scripted, so the holes do look a little uncanny and square-like, but overall it's the best-implemented feature in the game. It's arguably the only thing that was actually implemented well, because it's really the only bug-free thing in the game.
The net code for Bad Company 2 is abysmal. It's honestly the worst coding I've ever seen. It gave me a new respect for hitscan in the source engine because at least that actually makes sense. Bullets are prone to disappearing out of existence or lagging incredibly far behind where you actually fire them, this is incredibly bad for shotguns which is sad because they're some of the most realistic video game shotguns out there. Models lag incredibly far behind hitboxes, which makes hitting moving targets literally impossible on some servers. Getting killed after running behind cover is also incredibly common due to BC2 being the laggiest online game I've ever played. Player pings are never below 100, and server latencies are lucky to reach below 60, most fall in the 80-100 range. Dedicated servers are also missing which I can only assume is the fault of EA, so I won't blame DICE for that.
What I can blame DICE for though is making movement in battlefield probably the worst that I've ever seen in any game. Despite my hating on the game earlier, it's fun enough to push past all of that and try to have fun. One thing I didn't mention earlier is the level of detail on the guns, each kit has about 12 to choose from, not including sidearms and other miscellaneous all-kit guns, it's very well done and there's tons of variety. If the movement wasn't so shitty, BC2 would be a fun game. Movement is the most important part in any game, it comes before combat, dialog and story. If you can't traverse the world of the game, you can't interact with anything or engage in any action in the game. Movement is essential for players to get places and do things in your game. DICE doesn't believe any of that though, and Bad Company 2 shows that. Models for scenery are incredibly sloppy, it's common for natural cover like rocks to appear half its actual size and be surrounded in invisible walls making them mostly useless for cover and a pain in the ass to navigate around. Hills are probably the worst, it's nearly impossible to walk or run up even the tiniest slope and crouching or standing up on random pieces of cover will often send you sliding down to the bottom of them. Running in and out of buildings is also a tremendous task for your soldier as he can't handle stepping up on to something 5cm above his current foot position. The models for stairs don't allow you to run up them from the side, despite the fact that they rest no more than 15cm off the ground, which makes running into buildings to escape an ambush almost impossible. Climbing in and out of windows is almost impossible to do without receiving an ass full of lead either. It takes an extraordinarily large time to get in and out through them, and lagging while inside and getting stuck is too common. Generally, moving from one point to another on any map is very arduous, even without people trying to murder you. The scenery and buildings result in more player deaths than bullets.
In closing, Battlefield Bad Company 2 is a bad game. It has it's strong points in a large arsenal of guns, generous customizability of said kits and your own kits and destroyable scenery which should be implemented into more games. The massive lag, bad netcode and poorly designed engine mean that deaths are often a result of bad luck as opposed to bad play and results in massive helpings of frustration and ragequits. Though not a fault of the developers, the players are absolutely retarded and the team-based nature of the game leaves you with bad scores and kill to death ratios despite good play. Playing Bad Company 2 feels like playing a beta. It's got some large issues that need fixing, but dedicated post-release support could have salvaged it.
Final Score: 2/5 (40%)
I never really understood regenerating health in shooters. At least in Halo it made sense; your health didn't regenerate, your shield did. The player retained all damage taken after their shields went down. But in a pseudo-realistic modern day war simulator, soldiers losing half their fucking torso to a grenade and regrowing it in half a minute never made any sense to me. It breaks the feeble attempt at realism that the blood splatter on your face is supposed to create, and just encourages camping. I don't have a problem with camping in games like Team Fortress 2, the map design facilitates multiple entryways to just about every point in the map, but in BC2 it's surprisingly difficult to take down that stupid fucker holed up in a building with a grenade launcher.
DICE did a reasonable attempt at balancing this however, by making player health incredibly low. In general, 4 to 5 clean hits on someone from medium range will kill them, give or take depending on your kit. Most assault rifles turn soldiers to Swiss cheese incredibly easily, while sub machine guns appear to fire paint balls. I understand that's because they fire lower caliber rounds, and a lesser damage makes sense, but it's fucking ridiculous sometimes. Sniping was implemented fairly well too, bullet drop is very noticeable and the scope of most sniper rifles floats up and down to simulate the movement caused by breathing in real life. Two guns however, namely the GOL sniper magnum and SVU, do not suffer from this effect, making them ideal sniping weapons. Sniping is rarely a problem in most games, it's just that the class seems to attract mentally retarded brazillians.
Bad Company 2 is a squad-based shooter that relies heavily on teamwork. It's sad that there are so many people that don't understand this, and even more sad is the fact that I always get assigned to their team. Players storming into enemy occupied strongholds constantly, and have the nerve to blame me for "not covering them" or something else equally stupid. Each class, or "kit" as they're referred to in game, has one or two "gadgets" that do something to help either yourself or others. Assaults can drop ammo for themselves and others, medics can drop health kits and revive dead teammates, engineers can repair friendly vehicles with their repair tool and recons can throw a motion mine that reveals moving enemies within a 20 foot radius. You'd be surprised how few players actually use any of these things, even though they get points for tossing around ammo, health, repairs and mines everywhere. I blame this partially on players just generally being stupid and partially for the existence of Call of Duty. Battlefield does not reward players for being giant fuckheads and charging into enemy territory and holding down left click. Well it does, but it takes 3 kills to get the same amount of points as capturing a control point, so it just rewards being a nice guy and giving ammo to everyone and capturing points. Good medics get obscenely large scores almost every round because healing a squad of players can net upwards of 400 points: equivalent to 8 kills. A common problem for most medics however, is that seeing the health of your teammates takes an unnecessarily long time, making it hard for medics to tell when you need a health kit.
The game comes with an integrated "Socialize" button, which can be used for a multitude of functions, including asking medics for heals. When pressed on friendly assault players, you ask for ammo, medics for medkits, and engineers for repairs. Pressing the socialize key when pointing at an enemy "spots" them, which places them on the minimap of all your teammates to assist in killing them. However, all of these things run on an incredibly useless and infuriating timer, so you may spend a good 30 seconds trying to spot someone or ask for a medkit while you mash Q (the default spot key) in frustration. I can only assume the timer was introduced to stop players from spamming spot to get lots of points (you get 20 points if someone kills an enemy you spotted) but you shouldn't penalize players for trying to help their team take out enemies.
The main feature of the Bad Company series is the destroyable scenery, which is executed surprisingly well. Hand Grenades, 40mm Grenades, C4, Mortars and rockets all destroy most scenery they hit, and buildings which lack integral walls will fall down and kill everyone inside them. This does make dealing with campers much easier than in other traditional shooters, but turns maps into soldier-fed meat grinders after all the cover has been blown to bits at the end of the round. Still, the holes are pre-scripted, so the holes do look a little uncanny and square-like, but overall it's the best-implemented feature in the game. It's arguably the only thing that was actually implemented well, because it's really the only bug-free thing in the game.
The net code for Bad Company 2 is abysmal. It's honestly the worst coding I've ever seen. It gave me a new respect for hitscan in the source engine because at least that actually makes sense. Bullets are prone to disappearing out of existence or lagging incredibly far behind where you actually fire them, this is incredibly bad for shotguns which is sad because they're some of the most realistic video game shotguns out there. Models lag incredibly far behind hitboxes, which makes hitting moving targets literally impossible on some servers. Getting killed after running behind cover is also incredibly common due to BC2 being the laggiest online game I've ever played. Player pings are never below 100, and server latencies are lucky to reach below 60, most fall in the 80-100 range. Dedicated servers are also missing which I can only assume is the fault of EA, so I won't blame DICE for that.
What I can blame DICE for though is making movement in battlefield probably the worst that I've ever seen in any game. Despite my hating on the game earlier, it's fun enough to push past all of that and try to have fun. One thing I didn't mention earlier is the level of detail on the guns, each kit has about 12 to choose from, not including sidearms and other miscellaneous all-kit guns, it's very well done and there's tons of variety. If the movement wasn't so shitty, BC2 would be a fun game. Movement is the most important part in any game, it comes before combat, dialog and story. If you can't traverse the world of the game, you can't interact with anything or engage in any action in the game. Movement is essential for players to get places and do things in your game. DICE doesn't believe any of that though, and Bad Company 2 shows that. Models for scenery are incredibly sloppy, it's common for natural cover like rocks to appear half its actual size and be surrounded in invisible walls making them mostly useless for cover and a pain in the ass to navigate around. Hills are probably the worst, it's nearly impossible to walk or run up even the tiniest slope and crouching or standing up on random pieces of cover will often send you sliding down to the bottom of them. Running in and out of buildings is also a tremendous task for your soldier as he can't handle stepping up on to something 5cm above his current foot position. The models for stairs don't allow you to run up them from the side, despite the fact that they rest no more than 15cm off the ground, which makes running into buildings to escape an ambush almost impossible. Climbing in and out of windows is almost impossible to do without receiving an ass full of lead either. It takes an extraordinarily large time to get in and out through them, and lagging while inside and getting stuck is too common. Generally, moving from one point to another on any map is very arduous, even without people trying to murder you. The scenery and buildings result in more player deaths than bullets.
In closing, Battlefield Bad Company 2 is a bad game. It has it's strong points in a large arsenal of guns, generous customizability of said kits and your own kits and destroyable scenery which should be implemented into more games. The massive lag, bad netcode and poorly designed engine mean that deaths are often a result of bad luck as opposed to bad play and results in massive helpings of frustration and ragequits. Though not a fault of the developers, the players are absolutely retarded and the team-based nature of the game leaves you with bad scores and kill to death ratios despite good play. Playing Bad Company 2 feels like playing a beta. It's got some large issues that need fixing, but dedicated post-release support could have salvaged it.
Final Score: 2/5 (40%)
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