Thoughts for Monday 041210 (Mostly about Bad Co 2)

PSA: April 15th is the last day that you can play any original Xbox 1 titles on LIVE. Bust out your copy of Halo 2 for the last time.

I'm almost 17 hours into Final Fantasy XIII and the game is still going nowhere. This is when most games are wrapping up, yet FFXIII has decided that it's still time for plot development. Seriously, there hasn't even been any real rising action yet.

Trying to play through Perfect Dark on Special Agent has given me a whole new appreciation for check points in FPS campaigns. I've been stuck on the same level for a long time (Infiltrating Area 51).

And now the rest is about Bad Company 2...
In no particular order, here are my 10 favorite kits for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (one kit per gun; vehicle perks and side arms not included ):

• Medic: M60, Defibrillator, Red Dot Sight, Magnum Ammunition
• Medic: USAS-12 Auto, Defibrillator, 12 Gauge Slugs, Magnum Ammunition
  
• Assault: AN-94 Abakan, 40mm Grenade, Red Dot Sight, Assault Marksman
• Assault: M16A2, 40mm Grenade, Red Dot Sight, Magnum Ammunition
• Assault: WWII M1A1 Garand, C4 Explosives, Light Combat Equipment, Magnum Ammunition
  
• Recon: M24 Sniper, Mortar Strike, 12x High Power Scope, Improved Demolitions
• Recon: VSS Snaiperskaya Special, C4 Explosives, Red Dot Sight, Magnum Ammunition
• Recon: Type 88 Sniper, C4 Explosives, 4x Rifle Scope, Magnum Ammunition
• Engineer: PP-2000 Avtomat, M136 AT4, Ammo Hip Bandolier, Magnum Ammunition
• Engineer: AKS-74U Krinkov, Anti-Tank Mines, Explosives Leg Pouch, Improved Demolitions
  

And, hey, you know what's nice about BC2? I can carry all of those kits and more into battle! I can't stress enough how awesome it is that I don't have to pre-build kits before battle. I hate being stuck in a situation where I could really use a certain class and I just can't. For example, if we're getting bogged down by tanks and I really need to go tank bustin', I can throw together an engineer class that is completely geared toward shooting a lot of rockets at tanks. You may notice that I put Magnum Ammo on nearly everything. Well, it's easier for me to tell the benefit of magnum ammo than the benefit of ceramic armor in that game. Maybe if it was like Call of Duty and told me when I was shooting at someone using body armor (a.k.a. Juggernaut/Pain Pill) I'd be more aware of it. As it stands, most of the specializations in Bad Company 2 only offer marginal benefits, so it doesn't make that much of a difference.

I think I may be the only person who likes the USAS better than the Saiga. I know the Saiga has better stats (that's indisputable), but something about the USAS just feels better.

I've now gone gold with every gun except the G3, M9, M93R Burst, and the MP-412 Rex. Having spent quality time with every gun, I can pretty positively say that the AEK-971, the Uzi, the F2000, the MG3, the Thompson, and the SV98 are my least favorite guns.

I have a total of 4 tracer dart plants. I fail to see how tagging a helicopter is sufficiently easier than hitting it with a rocket.

The "Stimulus Package" ended up being the fastest-selling map pack in XBL history. So much for $15 being too expensive. To everyone who bought it: thank you very much for raising prices.

On that note, DICE has said that they'd like to make all of their map packs free, but it's not really up to them. It's up to EA. Giving away free map packs would be a good way of steering more gamers away from the Call of Duty franchise. I honestly can't imagine anyone liking Modern Warfare 2 better than Bad Company 2 after having played both. Having said that, I really don't want BC2 to be more popular than Mod2. You know how Macs always brag about how they don't get viruses? Well, why do you think that is? Is it because OSX is a more secure operating system, or because Apple hardware is more robust? No, it's because the Mac user-base is exponentially smaller than the PC user-base. It's not even close. Plus, almost all businesses use Windows. So, if you're going to write viruses or spyware, why go after such a small portion of the population? Writing viruses for Macs is a waste of time. By that same reasoning, Modern Warfare 2 is plagued by asshats and glitchers because it's the most popular shooter on the market. Sure, Infinity Ward should have done a beta and that would've caught stupid things like the Model 1887s, but even if they had, there would still be near-constant attacks on their code base. The point of this aside is that I'm worried that if BC2 becomes more popular than Mod2, that all the hackers and idiots will bring all their nonsense to that community and I'll have to go elsewhere once again. I know it's completely selfish and I wish nothing but the best for the guys over at DICE, but if some ridiculous thing like the javelin glitch happens to BC2, it will be a sad day for all of us.

Speaking of free map packs, why not just port some maps from the first Bad Company straight over? The only adjustments you'd have to make--that I can think of--are changing all of the Artillary guns to UAVs, adding UAV spots to each new offense spawn, updating the vehicle spawns, and making certain buildings collapsible. Valley Run was a fantastic map (here's a quick refresher for those who played the first game) and I'd love to see that one come back. I would also love to see Over and Out because defending that last point in the bottom of a bunker was a blast. I loved Harvest Day's farm setting, but I think it'd be too open for BC2. Snipers would just wreak havoc on that map. Oasis was good, but there's no need to bring that back because it's just an inferior version of Arica Harbor. I really liked the enormous cranes that you could snipe from on Deconstruction, but they'd have to alter that map to make the second leg easier for the offense. Getting across that bridge was an exercise in futility. End of the Line involved way too much running/swimming and was so open that you actually saw people too infrequently. Final Ignition had that giant building at the beginning that was way too easy to defend and got frustrating. The last map was Ascension, which was a nightmare for the offense. It was like Nelson Bay, but the offense had to run uphill the whole way, and the entire map was congested with buildings. It might not have been any fun, but it did have a castle at the end which was a cool-ass set piece. That's something that the new game lacks. Leguna Presa really missed an opportunity when it used the dam as just the background. How cool would it be to snipe from/at the top of the dam? I also wish they'd bring back the golf course setting. The campaign of the first game had a level where you infiltrate some rich Russian guy's house, and you have to fight your way through a golf course to get there. When they eventually released the Conquest gametype, they had a golf course level. It was awesome.

I've heard some people grumbling that M14 and G3 don't have available RDSs and 4x scopes. They discussed this on the Battlefield Blog and his reasons make sense, especially with the M14. If you want a powerful semi-auto rifle, use the T88 S.

I wish they'd make it so that if your teammate puts C4 on your UAV and blows it, your UAV should explode. It's pretty cheap that three guys can systematically destroy every MCOM station without ever leaving their spawn. Sure, a good player should always spot a UAV when he sees it, and the team should be able to shoot it before it flies away, but there are newbies who have no idea what's going on, and it's not really fair to them.