I registered just to respond to this. More often than not, I like Yahtzee's reviews and agree with most of his comments, and his review for Bad Company 2 isn't much different. But, I don't think he really gave the game a fair chance, here.
I agree realism shooters are getting a little old, and I will admit the single-player campaign is a bit contrived, and very frustrating at times. I didn't have (much) trouble with the first mortar section, though it took me a few tries to figure out exactly what to do with the second later in the game. Some of the vehicle sections were downright annoying. The fact the enemy AI focuses on the player while ignoring the AI squadmates, especially when they're standing in clear view, is downright stupid. The enemy AI does also seem to have a certain amount of prescience and shoots way too well, especially for being the poorly-trained militia the player fights through the game. Most players won't ever see some of the most entertaining parts of the game (the squad banter) because what a player must do (idle) is entirely contrary to what they've been trained to do in these kinds of games.
That said, the centerpiece of the Battlefield series has always been online multiplayer, which is where the majority of the play and the fun is. I know from his reviews Yahtzee is not a fan of online multiplayer, so I can't fault him for looking at only the campaign, but on the other hand Yahtzee as a long-time gamer ought to know the Battlefield series for what it is and its focus. When it boils down to it, I think of the campaign as an extended tutorial, teaching the player gameplay aspects such as basic tactics, vehicle role and operation, and weapon role and optimization. That may not be how these sorts of games ought to be developed, campaigns ought to be longer, more involved, and better-narrated if they are going to be added at all, but it's simply how it is.
With that said, BFBC2's online multiplayer is also its most damning feature. Bad Company 2's multiplayer is heavily team-oriented, and players can only form a single squad before joining a game, which means that outside of squad deathmatch and squad rush, there will be between eight and twelve other players on a team whose presence the player cannot control. With as large as some maps get, the player is dependent on the skill and intelligence of those other players to achieve victory; while there are no penalties for losing a match (and almost no incentive for winning) and a player's score is independent from victory or loss, even a pre-made squad of skilled, solid players rarely are the difference between winning and losing. No one likes to lose, especially when a team loses a match because the majority of a team are blithering idiots, which happens more frequently in this game than I care to admit. However, neither DICE nor EA are to blame for those issues, as the problem lies within the community itself.
EA did a major disservice to its fan base in disallowing split screen, local match, and LAN play from the console versions. Likewise, I'm not very happy with their "day-one DLC" marketing decision (by that I mean locking maps which are already part of retail content, which are unlocked with the VIP code) and DLC-release maps. But, I cannot fault their decision, as with Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 I see a larger strategy developing on EA's part to combat the game resale market, which is something I've viewed as problematic for a very long time. Though, making a deal with Gamestop at the same time to release game modes and content as exclusives is slightly hypocritical, but I digress...
I also didn't see the big deal with the game's dust effects. It rarely affects single-player gameplay unless a player gets extremely destruction-happy, but turns into a completely different monster in multi-player, where dust can mask allied and enemy movement, prevent target acquisition and spotting, and actually be a major tactical (dis)advantage. Likewise, I find it a bit odd that Yahtzee would trash the game for being a cover-based shooter given his distaste for such things, when any piece of cover (with less than a handful of exceptions) is destructible and the player must constantly shift positions to stay alive and succeed. Lastly, health regeneration at this point is tired, contrived, and detracts from a game's realism, but it also must be said health regeneration only occurs in the campaign; in multi-player, while a player may recover from the effects of shell shock, their health does not regenerate and they must be healed by a medic to recover to full.
All over, based upon his reviews and comments through ZP and EP, this really isn't Yahtzee's type of game, and it shows. I know he does these reviews for ratings and revenue, and I'm sure in some part to generate much-needed controversy over games and the state of game development, and to drop anvils where needed, and I appreciate that fact. I'm not surprised he trashed the game, and he honestly brings up a lot of good points, but I think he really dropped the ball on this one, for which I can't fault him because it's just not his type of game.
I agree realism shooters are getting a little old, and I will admit the single-player campaign is a bit contrived, and very frustrating at times. I didn't have (much) trouble with the first mortar section, though it took me a few tries to figure out exactly what to do with the second later in the game. Some of the vehicle sections were downright annoying. The fact the enemy AI focuses on the player while ignoring the AI squadmates, especially when they're standing in clear view, is downright stupid. The enemy AI does also seem to have a certain amount of prescience and shoots way too well, especially for being the poorly-trained militia the player fights through the game. Most players won't ever see some of the most entertaining parts of the game (the squad banter) because what a player must do (idle) is entirely contrary to what they've been trained to do in these kinds of games.
That said, the centerpiece of the Battlefield series has always been online multiplayer, which is where the majority of the play and the fun is. I know from his reviews Yahtzee is not a fan of online multiplayer, so I can't fault him for looking at only the campaign, but on the other hand Yahtzee as a long-time gamer ought to know the Battlefield series for what it is and its focus. When it boils down to it, I think of the campaign as an extended tutorial, teaching the player gameplay aspects such as basic tactics, vehicle role and operation, and weapon role and optimization. That may not be how these sorts of games ought to be developed, campaigns ought to be longer, more involved, and better-narrated if they are going to be added at all, but it's simply how it is.
With that said, BFBC2's online multiplayer is also its most damning feature. Bad Company 2's multiplayer is heavily team-oriented, and players can only form a single squad before joining a game, which means that outside of squad deathmatch and squad rush, there will be between eight and twelve other players on a team whose presence the player cannot control. With as large as some maps get, the player is dependent on the skill and intelligence of those other players to achieve victory; while there are no penalties for losing a match (and almost no incentive for winning) and a player's score is independent from victory or loss, even a pre-made squad of skilled, solid players rarely are the difference between winning and losing. No one likes to lose, especially when a team loses a match because the majority of a team are blithering idiots, which happens more frequently in this game than I care to admit. However, neither DICE nor EA are to blame for those issues, as the problem lies within the community itself.
EA did a major disservice to its fan base in disallowing split screen, local match, and LAN play from the console versions. Likewise, I'm not very happy with their "day-one DLC" marketing decision (by that I mean locking maps which are already part of retail content, which are unlocked with the VIP code) and DLC-release maps. But, I cannot fault their decision, as with Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 I see a larger strategy developing on EA's part to combat the game resale market, which is something I've viewed as problematic for a very long time. Though, making a deal with Gamestop at the same time to release game modes and content as exclusives is slightly hypocritical, but I digress...
I also didn't see the big deal with the game's dust effects. It rarely affects single-player gameplay unless a player gets extremely destruction-happy, but turns into a completely different monster in multi-player, where dust can mask allied and enemy movement, prevent target acquisition and spotting, and actually be a major tactical (dis)advantage. Likewise, I find it a bit odd that Yahtzee would trash the game for being a cover-based shooter given his distaste for such things, when any piece of cover (with less than a handful of exceptions) is destructible and the player must constantly shift positions to stay alive and succeed. Lastly, health regeneration at this point is tired, contrived, and detracts from a game's realism, but it also must be said health regeneration only occurs in the campaign; in multi-player, while a player may recover from the effects of shell shock, their health does not regenerate and they must be healed by a medic to recover to full.
All over, based upon his reviews and comments through ZP and EP, this really isn't Yahtzee's type of game, and it shows. I know he does these reviews for ratings and revenue, and I'm sure in some part to generate much-needed controversy over games and the state of game development, and to drop anvils where needed, and I appreciate that fact. I'm not surprised he trashed the game, and he honestly brings up a lot of good points, but I think he really dropped the ball on this one, for which I can't fault him because it's just not his type of game.
