BF2142 Demo
The multi-player demo for Battlefield 2142 came out today. The download was amazingly fast considering everyone and their brother must have been scrambling to grab the file as soon as it was available (noon, EST). I managed to sneak an hour's worth of play time in when I was supposed to be cleaning the house (the actual reason I took the day off).
The demo didn't blow my socks off, but I still managed to be somewhat impressed. In many ways it is just like BF2, but there have been enough changes to the way things are done and the details to make you believe it's a whole new game and not just an expensive expansion pack. The head-bob is the first thing I noticed upon spawning. It's a lot more pronounced in BF2142. Moving at either a run or a walk both result in the screen bobbing and swaying in what feels like a realistic simulation of actual movement. That added to the fact that targeting is noticeably more difficult will undoubtedly result in a decent learning curve for folks coming off of BF2.
After the head bob, I noticed how the visuals were not really any better than BF2 were. The content is just more slick and futuristic than those of BF2, so it might feel like the graphics are better to some. The vegitation is a dead give away though - it's not any better than what we've seen previously. Fortunately, BF2 was a nice looking game when run on decent hardware and so BF2142 could do a lot worse than matching that quality. It's only been about 16 months since BF2 hit shelves, after all - it's not exactly a relic yet.
There have been some marked meta-game improvements since BF2. There are only 4 "kits" but each can be customized with different gear to emulate the different classes that we saw in BF2. For example, the demo gives your assault-class troop a medic pack by default. If you don't want to do the medic thing, just swap your equipment out for something else and you're off to the races. The same thing goes for the "Recon" class, who can emulate the sniper or the Spec Ops classes of BF2 - or end up somewhere in between. One thing I was very glad to see was the ability for any kit to trade out their "heavy armor" for more sprint ability. This means that if you want to play a support kit, but hate always running out of steam mid-fight, you now have an option. But, from my brief experiences, the light armor is almost a death sentence against even small arms fire, so be prepared to use that sprint to get the hell out of dodge when people start firing your way.
The weapons are similar to what BF2 players will recall, but with a decidedly futuristic bent. The rocket launcher is more powerful (but then, so are many of the vehicles), firing multiple warheads at a time. I'm not sure how well guided they are, but I managed to tag and annihilate several wheeled vehicles with a single spawn before finally getting smoked by a walker.
Oh yeah - the walkers. They're nifty to pilot but they're definitely not a no-brainer. You're quite a ways up off the battlefield when you're trucking around in one of those things, and it's easy to loose track of the action when the enemy gets too close to you. It can also get tricky to maneuver in and around mid-sized obstacles, especially if it's your first go at it. Practice is the key, along with the realization that there is an indicator in your HUD that shows you which way your feet are facing in relation to your torso. Use it. I already got stuck gunning for one tard who couldn't figure out which way to turn for the life of him. I had to abandon him as he successfully managed to maneuver off of a bridge and into the water.
The whole "Titan Mode" idea seems decent, though I was only actually able to land on the opposing titan once. Once out of maybe 6 tries. Those damn launch-pods are not easy to target at first. But it makes for an interesting and action packed game, since the final objective of both sides is a giant floating fortress that can only be accessed by either flying vehicle, or troop launch pod. The fighting gets very intense as soon as either Titan looses its defensive shields.
Scoring points works in much the same way BF2 did. You get points for killing opponents, taking objectives, and healing or resupplying your friends. One improvement that I was very happy to notice was the fact that if you make kills in pursuit of your squad leader's orders, you get bonus points. The fact that DICE realized that gamers are inheritly selfish morons who won't usually work together unless they're given some substantial reward for doing so is quite insightful - and about time. This means that the asstards who never bother to squad up will not get access to those points. I'm sure many of said asstards won't give a fuck (as asstards generally don't have a fuck to give) but I'm glad that the non-asstards who have been fighting in squads all along, will finally reap some benefit.
The demo doesn't include most of the kit or any of the unlocks that the full game will tout, so it's way to early to render any kind of judgment on the game, but the first impressions have been positive if not mind-boggling. The pre-game UI is cleaner and seems to run a lot more smoothly, and the server browser has already proven to be far more usable than BF2's ever was. That combined with the inclusion on an in-game buddy system will do a lot to curb the frustrations that players had with BF2. Or at least I hope so.
The demo didn't blow my socks off, but I still managed to be somewhat impressed. In many ways it is just like BF2, but there have been enough changes to the way things are done and the details to make you believe it's a whole new game and not just an expensive expansion pack. The head-bob is the first thing I noticed upon spawning. It's a lot more pronounced in BF2142. Moving at either a run or a walk both result in the screen bobbing and swaying in what feels like a realistic simulation of actual movement. That added to the fact that targeting is noticeably more difficult will undoubtedly result in a decent learning curve for folks coming off of BF2.
After the head bob, I noticed how the visuals were not really any better than BF2 were. The content is just more slick and futuristic than those of BF2, so it might feel like the graphics are better to some. The vegitation is a dead give away though - it's not any better than what we've seen previously. Fortunately, BF2 was a nice looking game when run on decent hardware and so BF2142 could do a lot worse than matching that quality. It's only been about 16 months since BF2 hit shelves, after all - it's not exactly a relic yet.
There have been some marked meta-game improvements since BF2. There are only 4 "kits" but each can be customized with different gear to emulate the different classes that we saw in BF2. For example, the demo gives your assault-class troop a medic pack by default. If you don't want to do the medic thing, just swap your equipment out for something else and you're off to the races. The same thing goes for the "Recon" class, who can emulate the sniper or the Spec Ops classes of BF2 - or end up somewhere in between. One thing I was very glad to see was the ability for any kit to trade out their "heavy armor" for more sprint ability. This means that if you want to play a support kit, but hate always running out of steam mid-fight, you now have an option. But, from my brief experiences, the light armor is almost a death sentence against even small arms fire, so be prepared to use that sprint to get the hell out of dodge when people start firing your way.
The weapons are similar to what BF2 players will recall, but with a decidedly futuristic bent. The rocket launcher is more powerful (but then, so are many of the vehicles), firing multiple warheads at a time. I'm not sure how well guided they are, but I managed to tag and annihilate several wheeled vehicles with a single spawn before finally getting smoked by a walker.
Oh yeah - the walkers. They're nifty to pilot but they're definitely not a no-brainer. You're quite a ways up off the battlefield when you're trucking around in one of those things, and it's easy to loose track of the action when the enemy gets too close to you. It can also get tricky to maneuver in and around mid-sized obstacles, especially if it's your first go at it. Practice is the key, along with the realization that there is an indicator in your HUD that shows you which way your feet are facing in relation to your torso. Use it. I already got stuck gunning for one tard who couldn't figure out which way to turn for the life of him. I had to abandon him as he successfully managed to maneuver off of a bridge and into the water.
The whole "Titan Mode" idea seems decent, though I was only actually able to land on the opposing titan once. Once out of maybe 6 tries. Those damn launch-pods are not easy to target at first. But it makes for an interesting and action packed game, since the final objective of both sides is a giant floating fortress that can only be accessed by either flying vehicle, or troop launch pod. The fighting gets very intense as soon as either Titan looses its defensive shields.
Scoring points works in much the same way BF2 did. You get points for killing opponents, taking objectives, and healing or resupplying your friends. One improvement that I was very happy to notice was the fact that if you make kills in pursuit of your squad leader's orders, you get bonus points. The fact that DICE realized that gamers are inheritly selfish morons who won't usually work together unless they're given some substantial reward for doing so is quite insightful - and about time. This means that the asstards who never bother to squad up will not get access to those points. I'm sure many of said asstards won't give a fuck (as asstards generally don't have a fuck to give) but I'm glad that the non-asstards who have been fighting in squads all along, will finally reap some benefit.
The demo doesn't include most of the kit or any of the unlocks that the full game will tout, so it's way to early to render any kind of judgment on the game, but the first impressions have been positive if not mind-boggling. The pre-game UI is cleaner and seems to run a lot more smoothly, and the server browser has already proven to be far more usable than BF2's ever was. That combined with the inclusion on an in-game buddy system will do a lot to curb the frustrations that players had with BF2. Or at least I hope so.