A few days out from the beta release, I feel I have my opinions together.
Negatives first, as a beta is for tweaking the performance of whatever is possible before release.
Spawn camping is never fun in any shooter, so that definitely needs to be addressed, OR its the gametype they provided. Hotspot's selling feature is the 'spontaneous and roaming objective' so spawning may be more difficult to vary in this gametype. We'll see. There was some spawn camping for sure in MOH 2010, but nothing that couldn't be overcome eventually.
Menus - wow, busy. I do want to see if learning them better makes them instead 'detailed,' but for now - they are difficult to navigate and a bit too complicated for in between round adjustments.
Betas are never good judgements of graphics because they likely restrict some to keep download sizes realistic. If this is running Frostbite 2 and B3 is any indication, it will look awesome. No worries. That being said, I think they chose poorly in providing a night map for players to 'check interest' on the game. The visibility is difficult with all the debris and clutter to begin with, players are in nearly identical uniforms, so we have to depend on the red enemy ID tagging, which I feel clutters the scene a bit. A daytime map that highlights the visuals and allows players to get a grip on the gameplay may have eased some of the panicked posts of 'worst demo ever.'
The positives: Gunplay and movement. I think they nailed it. Guns recoil, sound and look very impressive. The more gear you would carry, the slower you move - finally. No more sprinting around with an M60 hurdling rubble and dolphin diving for drop shots. I really like the tactical slide that transitions you to cover and peak and lean is great, albeit way underused so far by beta players. My bet is this - if a session on this beta map with players willing to move tactically with their team, use cover and suppression to actually play the objective took place - everyone would think it was a great game. The run / hop around and gun shooters are likely the haters so far.
Damage: Guns DO kill people when aimed at someone's chest and 4-6 rounds are fired off. There are no bullet sponges here. If you get hit , you're likely going to die. They gave you a 'modified cover system.' Try using it, otherwise don't crythat you 'die to fast.'
Scorechains - I am a fan of incentives, just not to the levels other shooters have provided. B3 is hands down one of my favorite shooters to date, but I missed some kind of scorechain to move me along now and then. MOH 2010 had great effects with the scorechains, the strafe runs and mortars really made the battlefield. I'm hoping these do the same. Also, there's something tactically satisfying to laying the smoke screen or mortar round at the right time to swing the balance. I think the Black Hawk gunner / spawn site is an awesome idea, it just poorly fit on this map. Again, we'll see.
Rate / servers / glitches - For a beta, I think were pretty ok. I can't say in several hours I had a dropped game, noticed a rate slowdown or any major map glitches. I can even say I hung up less on rubble and ground items while moving then I do in B3. Well done.
So, the nutshell for me is a positive experience, being a beta considered. I'm optimistic that the final version is much newer than this, but similar enough that with different game and map pairings, we get right back to what made MOH 2010 and B3 great.
Log in to comment