Wasabisoft

So.  I really did like the demo.  I’ve been a fan of the Battlefield series since the WWII days and I was very pleased to see an upgrade of the old flavor to a straight-up modernesque time period and I actually went out and PURCHASED the thing this past Friday.

I regret my decision.

What’s sad is that it’s actually a decent game.  The ability to destroy parts of the environment (ok, just buildings, and then only parts, but still) to remove from the enemy the benefit of their precious, precious cover is loads of fun.  And after having played through most of the single-player game, I must say I’ve enjoyed myself.  The fact that the main storyline character packs an M203 (the underbarrel mounted 40mm grenade launcher, for all the heathens out there) and I myself qualified expert with the ACTUAL M203 (as reward, I got to blow up a dilapidated truck with an HE round; I nailed that fucker, too) made for a very homey experience.  When I got to the point in the single-player game that I was able to lob grenades through windows to the exact point in a building’s exterior that I could pretty much kill anyone hiding on that floor (usually blowing out a wall or four in the process) I figured I’d move on up to the multiplayer areans, which is where all all ALL FPS’s really want you to go nowadays anyways.

I regret my decision.

The feeling I’m getting so far is that the staff busted their asses making the single-player campaign into a fun, game-selling experience that showed off the abilities of the engine they developed to a fairly shiny degree.  Hell, they even put the time into writing some not-terribly-terrible dialog for the game, which seems to be the absolute LAST thing funded for most FPS’s.  So yes, everything was cool in the storyline world, right down to a near plethora of main weapons to loot off the innumerable Russians mowed down in the quest for lots and lots of gold.  The developers, joyous in a job well done, went down to the Rock Bottom restaurant and brewery to destroy the brain cells that had brought them such success.

Intern Johnny was just locking up for the night when a crack team of EA mucky-mucks kicked the door in and demanded a multiplayer mode like four hours before the scheduled release date.  The fate of the online fragfest rested solely on the shoulders of Intern Johnny, who, let’s be honest here, was really only hired because he didn’t mind doing texture hashes.  So Intern Johnny throws together a multiplayer game using some single-player levels and chopping in player inputs in lieu of AI control, completely neglecting to include a large percentage of the weapons, a potentially game-making multiplayer bot option, ANY weapon mods whatsoever, and a choice at all of game types.  When he expressed his concerns to the EA pukes they turned on him like a pack of Hyenas giving up the Atkins diet.  Thus did the game make the ship date.

And now the WHY of my loathing of BC’s multiplayer.  First, no bots.  Look, some people view bots as lame space- and ticket-wasting sacks of processor-slowing crap, but the SIZE of these damn multiplayer arenas (a GOOD point; it’s pretty much necessary for effective vehicle usage, and I’ve always liked opportunities to take advantage of my penchant for mobility) really, REALLY necessitates having a few gangs of bots available for holding down a given area while the big boys (the PCs) go off in search of shit to blow up.  Dammit all, in the game I just played before throwing Mana Khemia in in disgust I went the entire round without encountering ONE fucking person on the other team.  And if NOT bots for static defense, at least create a target-rich fucking environment.  It’s entirely possible that bot play COULD have been an option during concept discussion (for pure go-here-and-defend usage, bots really would require fuck-all for processor cycles, ESPECIALLY if they only respond to “spotted” enemies) but, as my Intern Johnny metaphor earlier was meant to demonstrate, the multi- part of the game really feels tacked on under deadline pressures.

Second, holy crap, where are the god damned weapons.  They’re in the single-player game; why not fucking include them ALL as unlockables (or what have you) in the damn multi- game?  I mean, seriously, if you’re not going to have mod equipment (like CoD4 and, to a lesser extent, Army of Two and RSV2, for fuck’s sake; NOT to have moddy stuff is like Neolithic now, you lose the damn RPG crowd) at LEAST use all the weapons you went to the trouble of independently skinning and speccing.  But no, you get like three weapon choices per kit, one of each of which it looks like you have to cough up a micropayment for.

And thirdly, and perhaps most importantly… why does the multiplayer game run like shit as far as host communication?  I thought for a while that CoD4 would be the King by Divine Right of commo hopping (clearly being shot AFTER taking adequate cover, other players doing the teleporting between steps thing, having a weapon loaded with painless Lag Bullets that just cause the guy you shot in the face seventeen times to suddenly jump ten feet to the left during your death screen, etc.) but apparently BC is hankerin’ to stage a coup.  Regicide, son.  And dammit I KNOW it’s not just me because every motherfucker on BOTH teams is complaining postgame about their respective armies giving them Lag Munitions… EXCEPT the one guy who scored four times as many points as everyone else and who I can only ASSUME is hosting the fucking game.  Gerry.

So look, here’s my last word on this subject:  don’t buy this damn game.  If you have GameFly or a friend who WAS foolish enough to buy it, play through the single-player campaign (on Easy, if you like; the houses explode no bigger on Expert, so you needn’t bother having skilled bots getting in the way of your mayhem), admire the fine graphics work that went into the project, reflect on how having only the man-made objects destroyable is adequate to the purpose, then send the fucker back.  Don’t ruin a perfectly good game by slogging your way into the multiplayer stuff and raising your blood pressure unnecessarily.  Fuck, try A round, just to see what I’m talking about, then send the thing back.  Me?  I’m trading this bitch in the minute I get through the single-player stuff… I hope to reach GameStop early to beat the rush.