Battlefield: Bad Company demo

[jim g]

Weighing in at 1.6gb on PS3 expectations were high.

Not a bad intro, then....

First task, drive somewhere and fight the enemy (trying to not to spoil here). I used the turret machine gun and thought WTF. This is a monster gun the sounds like a wet fart.

Sorry, it didn't grab me at all.

Played for a few minutes and lost interest.

Now, I know it is old hat, but COD4 has made it really difficult for any other FPS war games now. I will play the demo again but so far, well, it is not for me.

[Orgun]

The default controls are terrible, had to do some tweaking to get them feeling right.

Multiplayer is a bit too laggy at the moment but it's just as good as it was in the beta, apparently they are goign to add more servers soon so that should alleviate the lag. Oh and if you get to rank four in the demo multiplayer you automatically unlock a weapon in the full game

As some people have mentioned in the headlines thread the sound is absolutely stunning I especially like the feedback from your mic if an explosion goes off near you.

Enjoyed the demo, looking forward to the full game.

[Uli]

i liked the SP demo. the guns feel much better and most of all more powerful than in the MP beta. one well directed burst can kill, even at some distance. movement, especially sprinting is somewhat slow compared to CoD4. the graphics and draw distance are decent but not spectacular. exceptional sound fx quality and use of surround channels. i'm now looking forward to the game more than before.

[Malc]

I agree with some of what's been said; it's just too laggy online, and after playing COD4 it just isn't good enough for me to purchase. Why do bloody EA always change the formula and cock it up. All we need is a port of the PC version, not this.

[jim g]

Have tried this again twice now and just don't like it

the whole thing doesn't feel right and the gun effects are no good

[Spatial]

The gun effects and sound are the best part -in fact the sound is probably some of the best in a FPS since Black.

Nice ideas in there but the game's controls are absolutely horrible. Why do all the button's seem to have just been randomly assigned without any real though behind them? Why do I have to cycle through every single weapon all the time? Why do I have to fight with the camera if I want to look around in vehicle mode?

So many questions.

I know this is just a demo but it's also very rough around the edges (truck pulls up and the occupants spawn right at the side of it - slightly lazy not to bother putting in the animations or ability to do that if you're using your own custom built engine?) and the SP just seems to play like a AI controlled version of Battlefield multiplayer. Everything from the re-spawns to the damage which stays in the environment when you die seems to mimic a multiplayer experience which, is personally not what I want from a single player game because every one I played like that just never seems to succeed at making you feel like you're playing with anything other than bots.

Also not too keen on any game when your fighting with the buttons to get into cover and even then you still take damage. I think the fact that it has to tell you what weapon killed you kind of indicates how badly thought out it is.

After being burned by EA and Army of Poo, I won't be getting this until it's come waaay down in price. Shame, as I was really looking forward to this one and still think the story and humour is going to be the best thing about it

[ShadowDancer]

I downloaded this last night. The buttons were certainly strangely mapped. (ps3 demo) It looked like the story could develop. I wouldn't know too much as I haven't followed this at-all and i didn't care much for the remake on the 360..thought it was boring, although I guess it could of been good for an xbox game at the time.

I'll think I'll wait for a price drop, I'm pretty sure I'll pick it up at
some point.

EDIT

I do remember reading it was built from the ground up.

[Eight Rooks]

Yeah, not impressed. I've never even played Battlefield and I can still see how this is just a lazy reskin of a primarily multiplayer game; "Hey, guys, let's all go to <point X on the map>" - "oh, no, <the enemy> are coming!" - "Why don't you use <the medic gun> to magically heal yourself?" etc., etc. I have a housemate who's been looking forward to this who has, shall we say, something of a fetish for realism (he can't stand anything remotely arcade-y, combo counters, damage popping up over someone's head, that sort of thing). I suspect various aspects of this are going to disappoint him immensely. Plus awful button mapping, will-this-do graphics, dull voice-acting and story elements... guess I'll be giving it a miss.

[fishbowlhead]

Yeah, not impressed. I've never even played Battlefield and I can still see how this is just a lazy reskin of a primarily multiplayer game; "Hey, guys, let's all go to <point X on the map>" - "oh, no, <the enemy> are coming!" - "Why don't you use <the medic gun> to magically heal yourself?" etc., etc. I have a housemate who's been looking forward to this who has, shall we say, something of a fetish for realism (he can't stand anything remotely arcade-y, combo counters, damage popping up over someone's head, that sort of thing). I suspect various aspects of this are going to disappoint him immensely. Plus awful button mapping, will-this-do graphics, dull voice-acting and story elements... guess I'll be giving it a miss.

Indeed it certainly isn't that good really. Yet more EA tosh!

and the medic gun? utterly blatantly stolen from cold winter on the PS2!

[Uli]

someone able to rank up to level 4 in MP to unlock the suppressor (or whatever the bonus item is)? i played three rounds but just couldn't score last night, even though i had lots of kills (100 - 200 points per round). strange.

apart from this the MP is - again - a mess for me. too laggy, unstable framerate and gameplay-wise frustrating at times. the tanks a far too powerful and resistant. grenades and even mounted machine guns do no harm to them. i wish there was a game mode without any armed vehicles - they are ruining the possible tactical elements of the game completely for me.

however, my hope rests on the Single Player game. if Dice manages to offer some Operation Flashpoint-like maps and mission variety then i might have a good time with game.

[Malc]

A game that's managed to recieve almost a whole thread of negativity. I had high hopes before this demo aswell.

[Zanza]

I really enjoyed this, it has the same feel Battlefield 2 did on the PC, and god knows how many hours I lost to that game.

The singleplayer was quite enjoyable, sure it's not a mark on COD4, but it's not quite the same game. This definately gives you alot more freedom in how you choose to take out your enemies, due in part to the large open terrain, the destructability of the scenery, and the range of weapons & vehicles available.

The guns feel good and the explosions are awesome, so no complaints there. Nothing beats firing an RPG into an MG nest and watching it explode into pieces.

The biggest downside of the singleplayer for me was the way it pulls you out of the gameplay and throws you into forced cut scenes, it was fairly irritating. I just couldn't see the point in half of them, not just the way they break the flow of the gameplay, but the fact that they give you limited control over the player (you can move the camera but your position is frozen). Is it really necessary to do this anymore? Especially when all the cut scene entails is the sarge getting a radio message? Surely instances like this could of been handled without pulling me out of the gameplay? This really felt like two steps backwards in terms of what recent games like COD4 have achieved in maintaining the flow of the gameplay.

The multiplayer is fun, classic battlefield gameplay, it's going to be awesome with a couple of mates together in a squad doing real teamwork.

I don't really get all the negativity, I'm really enjoying this.

And for the record, EA is the publisher, it was DICE who developed the game. I think they did a damn good job, especialy with the engine.

[Eight Rooks]

My brief play on the SP side of the demo didn't feel bad as such, just so... meh. It really did feel like nothing so much as your average sandbox World War <X> map - some anonymous stretch of countryside with spawn points here, enemy base here, weapon pickups here... nothing looked particularly eye-catching and the narrative elements, such as they were, just felt lazy and half-hearted. Am-dram wannabe Dirty Dozen crap. I didn't particularly care what was going on and only ended up playing further to see how it handled, which turned out to be unexceptional.

[Uli]

A game that's managed to recieve almost a whole thread of negativity. I had high hopes before this demo aswell.

no, that's not true Malc. maybe you should read more between the lines

the game, the SP at least, seems to do a lot right. weapon feel, aiming and feedback is great. sound fx and surround sound is outstanding. the visuals are decent, the maps and scale reminds me of Operation Flashpoint somehow. there are issues of course (controls, framerate etc.) but this game has lots of potential!

after all, i think after playing nearly every half decent FPS over the past 25 years i can well tell a good FPS from a bad one. and BF-BC certainly isn't belonging to the latter category.

[Rick]

i lasted about 3 minutes. Got in a hummer. Drove through a village into a red section and got hit by artillery.

because apparently..

you know what. i can't even be bothered.

I didn't like it. Yet another game to avoid. Sigh.