Bad Company 2 Beta

I've been really enjoying recently opened Battlefield Bad Company 2 Beta.


It's made of 1 map in "rush" game mode, which is the classic Counter-Strike bomb scenario, with a twist.


You get attacking and defending team. The attackers have to blow 2 "objectives" marked A and B, and the defenders have to...well... defend them. If both of the objectives are blown, larger portion of the map unlocks and the game continues until either all other objectives are blown, or the attackers are left with no more reinforcements. Reinforcements work exactly the same as the system introduced to Alterac Valley except for the part where defenders are not limited there.


Fun part is - you can get the job done as attacker in plenty of ways. Rig the box, plant C-4 on it, suicide strike it with a rigged quad buggy, drop mortar strike on it, hell - even bazooka works. Entertaining but at the moment the C-4 rush seems a bit overpowered and game breaking. I've seen games where the attackers were done with first part of the map in 2 minutes from the start - true story! In addition the friendly fire on the boxes is messed up. While you can't kill your team-mates you can destroy the objective, efficiently breaking the game for the whole server, and theres not much anyone can do about it at the moment.


The arsenal of vehicles is well-balanced. Each of the things you can fly/drive serves its purpose, and the variety is just enough not to get bored fast, and not to get lost in the swarm of 28 different bicycles. So far we have:



    * T90 tank
    * Bradley
    * A kind of Shilka AA platform
    * Overgrown version of Humvee
    * Quads
    * Apache
    * UH-60
    * UAV
    * Multiple stationary weapons



From the list UAV stands out - good idea adding the favorite Modern Warfare's C-130 feel to it. You get to pilot it from the safe spot for as long as you want to, dropping hellfire missiles on people's heads, using nifty laser-guidance system. Watch out for the sniper fire thou ;)


Destruction 2.0 at the moment seems overhyped. Its not that useful and effective as it would seem if you watch the trailers. It might be just me but for my week's time in game I have yet to see effective building-leveling action. At the moment, it looks like it takes much more effort to demolish a building.


Map design is pretty good, there are chokepoints, there are stealth-friendly detours around those chokepoints, nice sniping spots, close-quarter locations, vehicle ready open areas and places to cover you from enemy choppers. If the other maps follow the level of Port Valdez, there should be nothing to moan about in that regard. The terrain-glitches still have to be fixed - i its possible to get into places that are definitely not meat to be accessible.


Game uses what is a standard now in class-based multiplayer. So you get to choose between couple basic classes and after unlocking weapons and perks you can modify the class to your tastes. It should be mentioned that there are important limitations, making it harder to construct the uber overpowered monkey. So if you get a sniper rifle, you will be limited to long range combat and to things supporting that approach, making you an easy target for a knife crazed SAIGA equipped butcher. And vice-versa of course.


The lag is a big issue, stability is not good, there seems to be a lot of crashes. The experience and leveling system is limited to first couple of levels of equipment, and the game still has that Battlefield "feel" to it. I cant really describe it - but it kinda feels "sluggish" sometimes and not very dynamic.



Oh... and it has dedicated servers AND matchmaking.