Do you have what it takes to get a review published right here on Kotaku? Kyle does, as he gets all ghillied up in the snow.
Yes, that’s right, we’re now publishing reader reviews here on Kotaku. This is your chance to deliver sensible game purchasing advice to the rest of the Kotaku community.
And thanks to the very kind chaps at Madman Entertainment, purveyor of all kinds of cool, indie and esoteric film, the best reader review we publish each month will win a prize pack containing ten of the latest Madman DVD releases.
This review was submitted by Kyle Castley. If you’ve played the Bad Company 2 beta, or just want to ask Kyle more about it, leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Battlefield Bad Company 2 (PC Beta)
The PC Beta for BC2 throws you into a 32 player map Port Valdez as DICE bring back their attack and defend game mode ‘Rush.’ The Beta gives us a small taste of the vehicles, kits, and the rank up system we are all used to seeing from a Battlefield game, but more importantly, shows us what will be different.
Loved
Firstly, I’d like to say I loved pretty much everything from the old Battlefields that they brought into the new. The game modes, the kit types, the style which the game is played, loved it all. So I’m going to comment mainly on things that are new/improved, instead of the staples of the Battlefield genres.
Critical Kill Asists: Finally, we have a kill score system that’s more accurate. 50 points for killing an enemy, 30 for doing critical damage, and 10 for damage assists. Makes the scoreboard a bit more accurate as to players contributions. Destroying vehicles also gives you more points than ever before, which is just as well, as they seem to be tougher to kill.
Explosions: The ability to destroy terrain is enhanced in the sequel and it really shows. Creating entrances to buildings, routing out enemies from their cover, creating new pathways around the map, and many more possibilities lay at your trigger finger.
Camouflage: It may just be on the one Snow level you’re given access to in the beta, but the Ghillie suits seem to be ten times more effective in this game. You need to be looking for them to find them, and even then you can still miss them.
Hated
The menus: Well, not all the menus. The server selection page has been reported to take a few minutes to load, which is annoying as it gives you the entire server list in one go, instead of bringing up the servers as it finds them. You do not seem to be able to sort the servers by latency or players, rather only in alphabetical order. I would make a bigger fuss about this, but I am assuming that because it’s the Beta, these features will definitely be included in the full release.
Dying Animation: Whenever I died, I seemed to lose all momentum as soon as my HP hit zero. It’s like the opposite of a rag-doll effect, and it really irks me, and kind of ruins the immersion. Although, perhaps it’s just a motivation to stay alive?
Helicopters: I just can’t pilot them, no matter how much time I spend practicing.
There are many things I could go into further detail about, such as how simplistic yet wonderful I find the HUD is, how it’s now harder to rank up but possibly easier to get new equipment, but all in all it comes down to the simple fact that if you like Battlefield, it seems like you’ll love Bad Company 2. If you’re annoyed at Infinity Ward for their lack of dedicated servers, Bad Company 2 seems like it’d be a welcome choice. Hell, if you like FPS games for any platform, Bad Company 2 will probably serve you well.
Over and Out.
Reviewed by: Kyle Castley
You can have your Reader Review published on Kotaku. Send your review to us at the usual address. Make sure it’s written in the same format as above and in under 300 words – yes, we’ve upped the word limit. We’ll publish the best ones we get and the best of the month will win a Madman DVD prize pack.
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