Battlefield Bad Company 2 Demo Released - Good or Bad?

Well my most anticipated game of 2010 has arrived on Xbox 360 demo and what was supposed to make me smile from ear to ear has left me feeling a little deflated.

Sure COD/MW2 is a great shooter, but I'm not always satisfied running round like a nutter shooting everything in sight and being killed every 10 seconds.

My fave's have been Battlefield2 and Battlefield Bad Company. Not for the 1 player game, but the awesome Live multiplayer. The large sandbox environments, the variety of play, the chance to use my sniping abilities to the max, destructive environment and career aroudn in various tanks, jeeps and helicopters.

So when I downloaded the ne demo of BFBC2 last weekend I was somewhat aggrieved to find that (and I know it's only one map) they have changed some bits of the excellent format, button controls and effectiveness of weaponry not for the better.

With the release date the 3rd March and PS3 users playing the beta for over a month I hope they still make a lot of tweaks.

First off, no more red for baddies, blue for buddies highlighting on the screen, with such draw distance that has always made it a great way to know who you are shooting is foe not ally.

Secondly, shoot a whole clip at the enemy and they still don't go down! Not very realistic. Sniper rifle - should automatically reload, and the levelled up rifle's recoil is crazy (or is that only me?), quicker to fire, reload and sight the more powerful but slower sniper rifle then try and get the sights down on the faster shooting multi-kicking upgrade.

Thirdly, can't helicopter flight controls be as simple as the first games or flying machines on Halo etc? With no place to take flying lessons, the helis are a bitch to fly straight and engage with which takes all the fun out of them being in the game.

Fourthly, someone please tell me how I'm supposed to fire the guns in tanks? I know that sounds silly, but the forward and back driving buttons have been switched and the firing button seems to have disappeared, or worse do I need a seperate gunner in my tank to do the business, I hope not!

Finally, I'm not sure about the bring-back-from-the-dead defibrilator medic. When I have sniped from a thousand yards and killed with a great head shot an enemy I expect them to be RIP and not have them up and running around like a spring chicken in seconds again, due to a medic team mate with a penchant for playing Doctor Electro... Not really real is it... 

I'm finding a few more foibles, but the smile is not there for now. Hopefully, changes might be made and the full online games will be still better after launch.

It's not all bad points though. destructive surfaces and total take downs of buildings are brilliant; no more ability to raid spawning points and shoot on spawn enemy soldiers has been curtailed (nothing more annoying trying to get into battle and then being shot once by a shotgun in your own initial safe base); helicopters able again to take passengers and teh best bit ----- parachutes are back! which allows one to drop onto out of reach areas like the massive cranes and towers etc. Great team opportunities once again. There is also a greater variety of add-ons in the kit selection and upgrades in the new full game, so it will be interesting to see what that brings to the gameplay.  

I hope they've sorted out the party/squad mode better, all my mates love playing the last ones, but it's far more difficult than MW2 or GOW2 to play together as a team. And also it would be nice to see at least 2 player on one console play together in multiplayer live games. 

Why is it only HALO that has ever offered 4 player on one TV to play live multiplayer. What fun it would be on a big TV again to do that on BFBC2.

As this is their 3rd Xbox outing I would hope these things are the norm by now, but alas probably not.

Still looking forward to 3/3/10 and if it is not as good as I hoped I'm still delighted with the original BFBC which I still play more than anything else.

Anyone else playing it? I just realised I wrote quite a bit - oops - well it's my fave game so some of that passion I think just came through a bit too much there.

Give us your learned thoughts - I know Mr Warrent will be looking and a few others too. And as ever I'll be lining his pockets with picking it up on his excellent http://www.gamecrawler.co.uk site - and no that's not an ad for him, just a friendly recommendation, it keeps saving me money which is helpful in these lean times.

Cheers

Jon Clarke

JACE66 - xbox live profile - feel free to add me