We hop on a four-wheeler and cruise through the snow in Bad Company 2 multiplayer.
Battlefield: Bad Company marked the first entry in DICE's first-person shooter series to be designed solely for consoles. As part of that transition, the franchise's trademark 64-player online matches were scaled down to 24 in an effort to keep things running smoothly on trickier network configurations. Despite this, Bad Company's online multiplayer managed to preserve a lot of that chaos by way of newly destructible buildings and the remaining presence of vehicles. Now, after going hands-on with Bad Company 2 at a press event held at EA's Los Angeles offices, we've got a good idea of what to expect out of the sequel's online offerings. While the max number of players remains the same, a host of enhancements should make the combat even more frenetic.
What we played was the Rush gameplay mode on a snowy Alaskan map dubbed Port Valdez. Rush, if you recall from Bad Company, is a mode that divides players into attacking and defending teams and has them fight over a series of crates. The attacking team is out to destroy these crates in order to push the defending team deeper into their own territory, whereas the defending team's job is to withstand the onslaught until the attacking team runs out of respawns. Like in the Conquest mode featured in the earlier games, momentum is a big factor in Rush.
Although Rush is a familiar feature for those who played Bad Company, Port Valdez's snowy landscape is a marked departure from the green forests and brown desert maps that made up the first game's combat zones. But once again, vehicles are your best option for traversing the terrain. On this map, we spotted the tanks and helicopters that you'd expect, plus a new vehicle in the form of a four-wheel ATV. These zippy little quads are much quicker and nimbler than the vehicles seen in the first Bad Company, which seems to add a bit more unpredictability when you see one flying around the corner. They make it easier to get from point to point, but unlike taking a seat in an armored jeep, you're pretty much a sitting duck on one of these things.
Upping the pace of combat is one of the new goals for DICE. One way the company is seeking to do this is by making players a bit easier to kill, which in turn makes the flow of deaths and respawns a bit faster. The medic needle that was used to restore health in the first game has been done away with in favor of regenerating health, but when you take damage it takes a good, long while to restore yourself--noticeably longer than other shooters that sport regenerating health. You'll also see a streamlined control system that includes the ability to knife people with a dedicated melee button, keeping you from having to switch from gun to knife and back again.
The class system has been given a bit of a jumble, with the number of roles dropping from five to four. Those featured in Bad Company 2 will be Assault (traditional soldier class), Engineer (repair vehicles), Recon (sniper), and Medic (heal your teammates with a defibrillator). But despite the fact that the number of classes has been reduced, you're actually given quite a bit more flexibility with additional customizable kits. Not only can you mix and match primary and secondary weapons more easily across different classes, but you can also customize a good many parts of your gun such as the scope and grenade-launcher type.
During the course of battles, you'll notice that the game's destruction engine has been improved. In the first Bad Company, you could destroy the walls of a building to your heart's content, but no matter how many grenades you lobbed at it, the frame of the building would remain stubbornly intact. Now you can take down entire buildings with enough persistence, whereas on a smaller scale, cover will chip away more realistically if you continue hiding behind a small object for long enough while being fired on. This should help to further increase the frantic level of combat even as the maximum number of players remains at 24.
Based on our initial look, there's a lot to like about where the multiplayer is headed with this collection of clever tweaks and enhancements. EA and DICE still have some tricks up their sleeves in the form of a new multiplayer mode and what's said to be vastly expanded persistence and stat-tracking, so a few more drastic upgrades could still be around the corner. Until we get a look at that, you can expect Bad Company 2 to arrive in the first few months of 2010.
Shaun McInnis has always dreamed of an a open-world driving RPG based on Jack Kerouac's On the Road. Outside of video games, he enjoys photography and learning impractical coffee brewing techniques.
I haven't downloaded the demo yet, but as its out next week I might just buy it. But it does look very good. Looking forward to getting my hands on it, and playing. Online gameplay looks good as well. I wonder what type of multiplayer games it will have? :)
the demo is so good, i have been playing it more than most of the games i own and thats only one map and limited progression. Dice had me sucked in solid with BC1 multiplayer especially after they added a second multiplayer gametype and with it all and more coming in the box this time MW2 will definitely be seeing less of me , like a divorced couple, taking them on alternate weekends
Zracxes, go to fileplanet.com and you will be on your way with the PC beta...yes PC started last tuesday i beleive. And PC beta is 32...im pretty sure that will be max on PC. It is unfortunatly the same ole map over and over still.
Maticus_msu ? eh.. isent it only a beta for the ps3? and that not yet, where is beta for the pc ? there is no beta for the pc version at all i heard else where
PC beta's controls are really sluggish and feel spongy. I really hope they fix that issue and the game would be great.
nice to know that the health regen' takes more than a few milliseconds like in most games that feature it.
I hope they add more unlockables and the zoom scope of the m 24 is not what I expected, 12 X my arse!!!
Can't wait for this game, could be a serious competitor for MW2. Anyone know about any other modes that will be featured in multiplayer?
I am a BF2 fan and this looks like it might have just a touch of BF2 in it. Really do hope for dedicated servers. I agree with one comment about needing more players. 24 just does not seem like enough. 32 would be great 48 or 64 would be awesome. The graphics and sounds, sound and look awesome. I for one am very excited about it. Cant wait for BF3.
This game is going to be SICK!!!! Love the first one, and Battlefield 1943!!! EA and Dice are doing a great job with these games!!! There are so much more you can do than in Call of Duty! The ONLY thing I wish they would do is add more players to the multiplayer! 24 is great, but 32 would even be better!!! ;)
to Candybar65, 7 down. definition of insanity... doing the same thing over and over again yet expecting different results.
@FNG1234 In Badcompany1 there was a melee button and knives were 1hit kill. but there were still tactics because the guns prevent knifers from running up and knifing without getting shot to death first, I find the knife only practical when u are extremely close to a still, unaware enemy facing the other direction.
Keep in mind that kevlar is also used to protect craftsmen from their own tools, so it would still be resistant against knives to an extent.
And while you may have a point FNG, regarding the balance of a knife being an instant kill and guns being relatively ineffective, shot for shot, consider this. Kevlar is a polymer fabric, meaning it does only one thing, slow down extremely fast moving projectiles, like bullets. The more force that is applied to a polymer, the more it resists, making bullet penetration difficult with 9mm, 5.56mm or even 7.62mm FMJ rounds. However, a knife thrust is barely even a fraction the velocity of a bullet and is a well-honed blade, not a soft ,copper-encased bullet. This all comes down to the fact that a knife would indeed be more deadly than a bullet hit for hit on the chest area of a modern soldier.
Let's not get carried away here and lose objectivity. I mean, just because there is a dedicated melee button doesn't mean people will now forsake their guns entirely once they are within 10 feet of each other. It is merely a convenience feature. Believe me, if EA/DICE wanted mad-dash, smash and blast multiplayer like CoD 4 it would require a lot more than this. CoD 4 maps are tiny, for lack of a better word, which leads to the kind of gameplay you refer to. With the fact that the largest CoD 4 map accounts for maybe half the space of the smallest Battlefield map, you two can rest assured that tactics will still play a vital role in victory here as they always have in Battlefield.
@FNG1234 i totally agree- a dedicated melee button will turn this into tactics-free run and gun CoD4 style multiplayer.
"You'll also see a streamlined control system that includes the ability to knife people with a dedicated melee button, keeping you from having to switch from gun to knife and back again." First off, melee just promotes Run & Gun which diminishes the gaming experience. It always bothered me that a knife wound would =instant dead compared to being shot 7 times in the chest and being able to survive with an adrenaline shot. There are always those who run around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to knife the enemy when they have a perfectly good primary weapon.
I always thaought one thing about the destructon mode was stupid, even though you can destroy almost everything from walls to roofs to trees to vehicles one of the only things you couldn't destroy was a tiny wood crate about the size of your head. I shot one of those with a tank 5 times, a mini tank 7 times, lobbed 5 or 6 grenades at it, shot it with the helicopter, ran the previously mentioned helicopter into it, shot it with every gun, knifed it, and took the drill to it but it just wouldn't break
Probably my biggest disappointments from the first game were those stupid god-mode building frames, glad they changed it this time. Definitely wanna pick up this game, first one was a blast, albeit pretty short.
The comment about being a little more easier to kill is a relief. Im glad they are going more realistic than arcade like. And yes let's hope more support for the LAN game and Clan support.
Looking great.. =] Here's holding thumbs we'll be able to play a local lan and not just xbox live. Split screen would be fun too..
well, so far it looks like they've fixed two of the major problems (building frames and insane amounts of health) and fixed a few minor problems (lack of customising classes, Knife being a seperate weapon [hated having to switch to it], bullets doing nothing to cover) but they've annoyed me by further reducing the class number to 4. but with the customising that should'nt really be a problem.
I dont find the need for a dedicated melee button it really wasn't a problem at all. Oh well i guess the cod fanboys get there way again.
OMG YES!!!! I hated having a knife as a different weapon in BC, this is the best bit of news ive heard so far. To anyone who thinks that a knife button = copy of CoD4, knives have been in BF games long before CoD4, and most games have a designated melee button. Now i just hope that melee switches away from Y and either to B or RS, because Y is too far from RS for such a short-notice action. THIS GAME WILL BE AMAZING.
@ mike1146l Hey that same thing happened to me in BF:BC 1, i was in top 500 in leaderboards then one day it just stopped letting me play it online, it was awesome game, but ****ing **** wat happened to me.
Listening to the characters banter in SP was hilarious. I hope they take that to the next level in this one. As for MP love the idea of custom kits, I just hope the fix some of the weird bugs that plagued the first. If they do it will be awesome cuz I still play BC1
hopefully they can MAKE ONLINE WORK because i cant go online. it ssays cannot connect to game.
hell yes!!!! i love BC1 fun story and good online this and MW2 will be all the shooters i will be playing for a long time
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