Both John and myself have gone ahead and pre-ordered Battlefield: Bad Company 2 even though we originally had no intention of doing so. I’ve been seeing advertisements for the game for the last month and said “meh” to it. I had enough games to play, not enough free time, and Modern Warfare 2 has been satisfying my multiplayer needs (not that I normally multiplayer much). This was up until we actually got around to playing the demo the last week before it was shut down.
So what changed? Well first off in my research on BF:BC2, I saw a video which was showing off PC dedicated servers and game play, but more importantly their test server was named “Server of DOOM and cake”. This is a server name I fully approve of. I mean, who doesn’t love doom and cake? I know I do. Beyond devs with a good sense of humor, there was a demo that was enjoyable to play.
John and I played the multiplayer demo a number of times and enjoyed it for the most part. The biggest advantage that BC2 had over MW2 was the fact that the game was more tactical and less “run & gun”. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes it can be quite fun running about madly, spraying bullets everywhere and generally making a nuisance of yourself (well John doesn’t enjoy this tight “in the fray” nearly as much as I do). Unfortunately that does get old after a while. I really, truly, enjoy tactical work. We’ll have to wait and see if it can be accomplished on team basis in BC2’s multiplayer, but at least it can work in small unit, if you can get even just one other friend together for your squad and actually WORK TOGETHER on a specific objective. In MW2 you spawn too randomly and live too short of a life to effectively work together in small units except by happen chance.
For John, I know, one of the draws for him is the ability to play a support role and get real XP for it. See, John’s not nearly as much of a shooter guy as I am. He’s much more for the RPGs and stuff, he has played Mass Effect for about 125 hours and Mass Effect 2 for 40 hours (so far). The last shooter multiplayer I got him to really enjoy was Planetside, and that was because he could do support work. While Planetside does give you support XP, it isn’t very much or very often. In BC2 multiplayer (demo) John could play how he normally plays, which typically involves him in a tank machine gun slot (of a tank I’m driving) and hopping out to repair it; or simply parking himself somewhere and repairing all the vehicles as they go along, and he got XP for this. He gets XP for this, not a HUGE amount, not as much as if he was an expert fighter out there killing people, but a reasonable amount. Even during the brief time we played the demo, a total of just a few hours, he managed to rank up. Heck, some matches he even got more XP than I did (generally when my tanking skill was sucking and he had to do tons of repairs).
I could list other reasons that sold us, but I think those are the “biggest” in my mind. After all, we didn’t decide to order until last week, when they shut the beta down. Oh, and if you are still on the fence about your order, the final straw that broke John’s back: Order Battlefield: Bad Company 2 at Amazon now and you’ll get “$20 off a future video game purchase“. The credit is good till the end of April, so you could use it against your preorder for Final Fantasy XIV, Crackdown 2 or Halo: Reach (or is there something else good coming out soon?).