austrian otaku

Yes, I’m still alive. No I didn’t give up on this blog. It’s just that:

1.) I can’t find much interesting stuff to write about.

2.) I’m busy job hunting… and playing Bad Company 2

Currently I’m rank 44 (Colonel II) and have already played over 300 hours.

So I guess I’ll have spent enough time online to judge the game.

While Bad Company 1 was only available for “last gen” consoles, Bad Company 2 brings the Battlefield franchise back to the best, technically most advanced gaming platform: the PC.

Bad Company 2 features a real campaign, which is funny but of course very short. You are not paying for single player anyway. What you are paying for is multiplayer! (I’m always playing in hardcore mode. This means: more realistic weapon damage, no ammo/health bar, no enemy spotting, no crosshair, friendly fire is on and no mini-map and sometimes no third person camera in vehicles.)

The game types featured in BC2 are:

Rush:

Players must defend or destroy pairs of M-COM stations for as long as the attacking team’s respawn tickets hold out. Lost tickets can be regained by reviving fallen teammates. An M-COM station can be destroyed by planting a charge, using explosive weapons or when a building is collapsed down on it. Definitely my favourite type, I’m nearly always playing Rush now.

Conquest:

The classic gameplay from every Battlefield series game. Players must capture and hold flags for as long as the enemy respawn tickets hold out. Every kill makes the enemy lose one ticket, and enemy tickets constantly decrease when a team controls more than half of the flags on the map. Vehicles unlock as control points are held.

Squad Deathmatch:

Up to four squads and one Infantry Fighting Vehicle roam the map. First squad to score fifty kills get the win.

Squad Rush:

Squad Rush puts a squad of four players versus another squad of four players for a max of eight player matches of Rush. The maps for squad rush are taken from both conquest and rush. There will be only 2 M-COM stations in the entire round.

Onslaught: One squad of up to four players faces an onslaught of enemy AI soldiers. This game mode will feature new lighting and time of day on existing maps, as well as new vehicles. It is currently available for Xbox and PS3 only.

Bad Company 2 is one of the first DirectX 11 games and is probably the best looking multiplayer shooter so far. Although some weapons don’t look as detailed as in Modern Warfare 2, the massive maps look awesome.

My Radeon 5770 can handle the game really good in 1920×1200. I would recommend to get a Radeon 5770/5850/5870 and a quad core CPU if you’d like to enjoy the game in all it’s glory. Two cores won’t be enough for that.

BC 2 uses the Frostbite Engine 1.5, featuring Bullet Drop and ability to destroy whole buildings.

So compared to other shooters you have to keep the following things in mind:

1. Nowhere to hide:

Any wall, any fence, trees, bushes and even the ground can be destroyed by grenade launchers, RPGs, explosives and such. Tanks can drive trough walls are shoot big holes into them. Buildings will collapse if most of the walls are destroyed.

You have to move constantly, if you camp somewhere it won’t take long until someone just blows your cover away. Destruction 2.0 is also important for Rush mode. On some maps I just take a tank and drive trough the walls of the building where the M-Com is located (especially if my team just can’t manage to destroy it in the usual way.)

2. There is something called gravity:

Games like Modern Warfare 2 teach you wrong physics. The ones in BC2 aren’t completely accurate either but at least it feels more realistic. Bullets are affected by gravity, keep it in mind and stop wondering why you can’t get a hit. This is quite important if you are a sniper douche bag of course… ährm.. I mean recon douche bag of course. And while we are at it, lets talk about the different classes in BC2.

Classes:

Assault:

Usually using assault rifles, the assault class is great as spearhead of any attack.

Note: “Usually” because there are class specific weapons and ones that can be used with any class. At first you just have a few weapons unlocked but you will get new ones quite fast. Additionally you will unlock gadgets like defibrillators, grenade launchers and so on and specializations like red dot sights, sniper scopes and what have you.

There are automatic rifles like my beloved Steyr AUG A3, rifles firing bursts like the AN-94 and the M16A2. Every assault rifle comes with either a 40mm grenade launcher, 40mm under barrel shotgun or smoke grenade launcher. Besides the sidearm which can be equipped by any class assault soldiers also carry ammo packs with them. You can ask for ammo by pointing at the assault dude and pressing Q. (This also works for medics, vehicles, enemies and basically anything in BC2.)

Providing your comrades with enough ammo is especially important on maps where you have to use lots of ant tank weapons. In Bad Company 2 every in game voice has a meaning, it’s not some ambient noise. If someone asks you for ammo you hear them say things like “ammo, I need some ammo” and their overhead icon will flash.  Throw a box and maybe you just provided them with that one more rocket that was needed to blow up that f*cking M1A2 rolling into your base.

Engineer:

Most of those folks are using a submachine gun, for close quarter combat and carry anti tank weapons with them. Either the “noob-tube” M2 Car Gustav (loved it first, since I did maintenance on those things when I was in the army, but it gets really annoying now) which is really effective against infantry too, the RPG 7, the M136 AT4 (laser guided) or anti tank mines.

If you usually hang around in a tank or helicopter you will hate those guys. Why? Because any class can carry a so called Tracer dart gun as sidearm instead of a pistol. It is a small, handgun-shaped weapon that can launch magnetic tracer darts at vehicles. The Carl Gustav and the RPG 7 can pick up that signal and you can fire a rocket without having the target in sight. And, yes you can also tracer dart other players. xD

Don’t underestimate the engineers primary weapons. Most of them are silenced and are highly effective especially when used with a red dot sight.

Another gadget the engineer is carrying with him is the repair tool which is used to repair friendly vehicles. It can also be used to destroy enemy vehicles and to kill enemies. Yes, even headshots are possible. ^_^

Medic:

My favourite class. Medics are the guys with immense firepower who will also sacrifice themselves to rescue their comrades. Medics usually carry a machine gun as primary weapon. Most of those have 200 rounds in one magazine! My favourite one is probably the Chinese QJY-88 or the Russian PKM. The German MG 3 would be great but at the moment it’s underpowered compared to other machine guns.

The 5,56 x 45mm rounds of the M249 do more damage than the 7,62mm rounds of the MG 3. Maybe for balancing purposes but this will be fixed with the next patch.

Medics have two of the most helpful gadgets with them: The Defibrillator to revive fallen comrades and Medkits used to heal themselves and other players within range.

Once again, make sure to listen to your comrades. It’s quite annoying if you are all messed up but the medics don’t care and just run by.

You can also pick up the kit of any killed soldier. That way you can pick up a medics kit and revive him!

Recon:

No, those are not just snipers. Yes, Recons wear a ghillie suit and most of the time they have a sniper rifle with them but they can do much more. They can relay enemy positions to their comrades with motion mines and they can destroy enemy vehicles, buildings and such with C4 or a mortar strike. Recons should clear the way for their troops by taking out stationary MGs, ATs, tanks. Also: Shoot the medic first! Yes, the Geneva Conventions say otherwise but considering how war making countries like the US systematically kill thousands of civilians without anyone interfering, it won’t be that much of a deal in a game I guess.

Recons can rush too! There are fast firing weapons available for the recon class, like the VSS Snaiperskaya which is a short, automatic sniper rifle. Equipped with a red dot sight and magnum ammo it’s one of the deadliest weapons for close quarter combat.

In hardcode mode one hit with a sniper rifle kills you unless you are equipped with the body armour vest specialisation.

The “all kits” weapons:

Besides the class specific weapons you can equip your soldier with weapons and gadgets which can be used by any class.

Those are pistols and the tracer dart, shotguns and marksmen weapons like the M14 or if you are a Battlefield Veteran the M1 Garand.

Pistols are quite effective in close quarter combat. There are fast firing variants like the Beretta Model 93R firing off a 3 round burst and revolvers like the Russian MP412 REX which does a lot of damage and often one shot kills.

Shotguns are great for close quarter combat but some of them, especially the Remington 870MCS are ridiculous accurate at long range too.

Vehicles:

A game of the Battlefield series wouldn’t be complete without the vehicles.

You can man light vehicles like ATVs, Jet skis, HMMWVs or patrol boats,  light tanks like the M3A3 Bradley, heavy tanks (T90 and M1A2) and choppers like the Blackhawk, Mi-24 Hind, Mi-28 Havoc or the Ah-64 Apache. There is also a UAV which can be very effective too.

Vehicles can be really effective if used right but will be destroyed in a matter of seconds if used wrong.

On certain maps, for example in Arica Harbour a good Squad with one T90 can destroy dozens of enemy tanks in a row.

Vehicles can be equipped with specialisations like better armour, stronger ammunition, smoke grenades, enhanced optics, secondary weapon systems, motion sensors or faster reloading time.

Enemy mines spotted!

No matter how well you use your tank.. sometimes it will just blow up. Always look at the ground ahead (or behind) you. Engineers often position AT mines on roads, in shallow water or behind random vegetation. You also have to look out for enemy C4, recons calling in mortar strikes, AT guys and stationary ATs.

Use your vehicles wisely, don’t waste them but if necessary sacrifice them (+yourself) to take the objective. If you already get the missile lock signal, you tank is damaged and no engineer is near you (or they are noobs) just use your tank to mow down the enemy and the M-COM building.

As you can see, Bad Company 2 is quite complex compared to older Battlefield Games. To sum it up: It’s all about team play. In games like Modern Warfare 2 you can be a Rambo like, camping, dual-shotgun wielding, lone wolf. In Bad Company 2 this won’t work. You usually are fighting in a team consisting of squads of four. Healing, reviving, providing ammo, repairing a squad mates vehicle gives you more points as a reward than usual. You can also spawn next to one of your fellow squad members instead of your base. Unfortunately some gamers didn’t notice that yet and this is on of the…

Problems of Bad Company 2:

Nothing is perfect and the flaws of Bad Company 2 can be broken down in two major categories:

Problems caused by DICE/EA:

A game always has graphical glitches of course…

…but I’m not talking about those here. Technically most of the game works now but…

Server browser: It’s still a POS. The search function is worse than the one in Windows 95, servers marked as hardcore are often none hardcore. The ping is only displayed if you launch Bad Company 2 as admin. Ping issue will be fixed with the patch.

Ingame chat:

You don’t see the chat and can’t interact while you are dead. (Will be fixed in the next patch.)

Third person bug:

Sometimes you can’t switch back to first person while in a tank.. for the entire round!

Knife bug:

The most annoying one. For some reason from time to time it’s not possible to knife somebody from the back.

MG 36 red dot bug:

The red dot on the MG 36s sight is not displayed in hardcore mode.

Weird EA Online disconnects:

Well, yah…

Spawn lag:

The game laaaags after you spawn. Will be fixed with the new patch.

Voice over IP:

Most of the the time this won’t work. We are using TeamSpeak anyway but would be nice.

The way DICE/EA treats us:

Battlefield became big on the PC in the golden days before the era of crappy console ports.

But now console players get patches and map packs… while PC players are nearly waiting two months for the announced PC patch!

Also: MAP PACKS:

The Map Packs DICE/EA is talking about are the same old maps with game modes like Squad Deathmatch or Squad Rush activated.

Some new maps would be fine because certain maps are getting boring.

But at least they announced a Vietnam add-on lately:

Hopefully you can turn on the radio in your Hueys like in good old Battlefield ‘Nam. Eheheh.

Problems caused by gamers:

Sniper/Recon bobs: They are a weird, egoistic species. They usually hang around far away from the frontline or spawn camp in the enemies base. They don’t care if the team wins or looses, they don’t move often and like to camp.

Recons can be useful, but no team needs more than a handful of them. Sometimes teams consist of 70%+ recons. This might be annoying for the enemy team but in the end the enemy will win.

Especially the light house on Valparaiso is often crowded with them. Sometimes this is just hilarious. Once I saw 6-7 recons of my team camping in there while 3 of the enemies recons where camping on the rocks below the light house…

Some of them use valuable vehicles like the Blackhawks just to get to their camping place and crash it their after parachuting out.

Carl Gustav lamers:

The Carl Gustav is f*cking effective against infantry… but some folks use JUST the CG and not there primary weapons. LAME!

Excessive spawn camping:

On certain maps you can enter the enemies base and their spawn zone. While it’s not that much of a deal if a recon get’s left behind if the base is taken in Rush it certainly is if one or more squads are constantly killing you from behind seconds after you spawned in your base.

Enemy Vehicle Stealing:

In certain situations it’s not that much of a deal but in combination with spawn camping stealing the enemies main battle tanks is just lame. On certain maps that way a team could get 5 MBTs while the other one would have none.

Hackers/Cheaters:

Aimbots, wall hacks and what not are used by some noobs who can’t play or have fun in destroying the game for others. If you encounter one of those idiots report them!

Former Modern Warfare 2 addicts:

They never heard the word word teamplay… they don’t heal you, they don’t revive you, they don’t pick you up, they don’t provide you with some ammo, they don’t destroy enemy AT mines or warn you about them and they never heard of the repair tool. Obviously their Q key is barely used.

Playing the same class all day long:

Some folks never switch classes. Sometimes you have to! If there’s a enemy tank attacking spawn as engineer, if a sniper is killing your comrades spawn as recon, if you have trouble moving forward join as Assault with an equipped smoke grenade launcher and so on.

But even with those problems Bad Company 2 is one of the best (the best?) multiplayer shooters I played so far. Action, teamplay and the variety of ways you can use to win are just great.  So if you love multiplayer first person shooters go and buy Bad Company 2 (for PC) now!

Fell free to add me ingame: Just search for “hikky” on your friend list thingy.