Well I managed to get a beta key off my good mate, erm, loaded it up and so far I fucking hate the game. Hate it.
Don't know where to start;
* Graphics are nice, better than Bad Company 2 but only just. The beta is crazily glitchy, in fact the screen flashes every few seconds. Sounds are ropey, presumably due to being a beta. When you go into the park, there is one single short bird noise playing in a constant loop.
* Sniper rifles seem to have absolutely no bullet drop. It's just like MW2. Aim with the right stick, where the sight naturally wobbles around, hold in the left direction stick to hold your breath. Shite. What I loved in BC2 were that maps were big enough to get some great snipes, by looping bullets from distance ahead of people running so they'd effectively run into the bullet path. Really hard but really rewarding. None of that here, for starters the map included isn't large enough to allow for any kind of long distance sniping.
* Don't know if it's lag, or whatever, but my mate tried the game too and you could stand there hitting someone from behind, three feet away, no hit markers at all. I know it's a beta but hit detection is AWFUL. A joke.
* Going prone. I hate it. HATE it. It's getting abused already. Hit anyone from a distance and every player in the game goes prone instantly and out of site. I'm not exaggerating. One clip of someone and they fall to the floor.
* Snipers. Half of every team are snipers, lying prone, at the back of maps, hitting you through crazily small crevaces they've somehow already discovered in a short few hours of this coming out.
* Oh, and I don't know if it's because it's a beta, but almost NOTHING is destructable. No buildings to collapse, nothing. The odd window can be blown out, but the rubble disappears. The Paris map is a flat, basic map comprising of nothing to blow up beyond a few windows. Shite.
* Finally, the map itself. Anyone who likes Battlefield 2, or even to a lesser extent, BC 1 & 2, will know about the more open maps. People complained the maps weren't open enough on BC2, well, this map is as linear as it gets. Part one is in the park, a wide open area with both teams at each end. Nothing in the middle except a few trees and statues. Then part two moves into the underground, which is at one end of the park. Nothing else is there, just an entrance that you can't go over, or around. Then there's the underground which is a series of corridoors and an upstairs, which funnels everyone into the same tiny area. Then part three is another outdoor section with a few second floor windows that can be blown out and nothing else.
It's really linear. Whether they make stuff more destructable in the final game, I doubt, as there's almost nothing to collapse or blow up within the map itself. The aiming and sniping feels more like MW2, hit detection terrible, and the graphics are admittedly in beta but they seem like they're struggling to achieve nothing more than BC2's standard of graphics anyways. Seems a lot has been sacrificed from that game to make something that feels more basic somehow. Hopefully the destruction issue is only restricted to this map, because as it stands I'll be skipping the Paris map after just a few short plays.
So far, it feels like a cross over between BC2 and Medal of Honor. Seriously thinking about cancelling my pre-order, and this was my most anticipated game coming out this year
