Battlefield 2 Demo First Impressions
Lets start off by saying with SO much hype was it really worth the wait? Ok now to start this off I have an account with Fileplanet where I expected to be able to get the game in like 3 minutes flat. Here EA put a gag order on fileplanet and made them hold off until the next day at 1:00PM EST. Almost 15 hours later of the others releasing it. Funny thing about this is Gamespy and Fileplanet are one in the same and they are one of the major contributors to Battlefield, they are included in the game for finding multiplayer games. All I can say here is way to go EA once again. Blunder after Blunder.
Finally after a whole night of trying to get it, mind you this is a 565MB download. I finally got it on a my Newsgroups, because of the speed I can download at. It took about a half hour once the guy who already had it from the 6:00PM release and finished posting it about 9:30PM. Getting it totally downloaded and extracted then the install - everything went what seemed to be flawlessly. Then came a reboot - you really don't have to if you already had DX 9.0C which if you have SP2 on XP you do. Another great thing is it hides the latest and greatest Nvidia Nforce Drivers within the install and asks you to install - say YES if you want the latest at 77.30. These are NOT WHQL though.
Ok after the reboot came starting the game. Guess what it blinks on and then back to desktop??? I'm like here we go again EA what a bunch of idiots. I then had to edit my Videodefault.con file to ShowAllRefresh rates from 0 to 1, as you do in BF42 and BFV, again this isn't fixed YET???
Tried it once again after the edit still NO GO, same result. I use a thing called Reforce to force in registry refresh rates for my monitor to lock 144HZ for 1024x768. I had to use this program and set everything back to DEFAULT. This and the edit of file mentioned earlier, fixed the issue and the game started. FINALLY... It was now about 10PM EST. Here is another great trick to get into the game much quicker instead of watching all those promo's and movies period. Just rename the MOVIE folder MOVIE_ with the underscore and the file can't call on the .BIK files so you get in instantly. You won't have movies in back ground either but who really cares?
Ok once into the game comes the REAL fun part, the set up of a joystick and mouse and keyboard. Not much different than 42 or BFV just a bit more complex. To erase a key setting just click on item and hit ESC. It at least tells you now where a same key is set so you can figure it out just use the ESC trick so you can set them until you get everything the way you perfer. Make sure you hit apply or it won't save, then you'll have to go back and do it all over again - I hit apply constantly just to not lose anything.
Now I set my Video card settings in Windows to Application Controlled on everything and Quality. No AF or AA are set in driver - just letting the applications control this. In game I set to Hardware for Sound and left EAX checked and maxed every setting possible out for graphics in game and saved as Custom. You then create an account with email and password and whatever name you want. Now comes up the first screen much more complex than BFV for choosing an online game. I also set my connection from LAN to Cable better than 256 or whatever it says there.
Now to the game, short and sweet - that's not my impression. It's much faster paced than a BFV, but it's very jumpy - not sure if mouse is set too sensitive or what but if I turned real quick it did a complete 360 and confused the hell out of me. I don't think anyone will get a ONE SHOT kill in this game unless aiming and hitting the HEAD with every shot? I was sniping and you can get a ONE SHOT KILL if you get a head shot. Tags are still going to be the way to play obviously - they light up you have a target. This game has a few more REALISTIC features like running then getting tired. Shooting is a bit odd and it uses short bursts and doesn't just keep firing until gun is empty - this takes some getting used to. I must have missed a button to change this but I only played for about an hour, unless it depends on the gun used. When I thought I should EASILY be hitting someone, it WASN'T. Not sure if it's just the graphics or LAG? YES folks this game still LAGS... BAD at times - I was in a game with 64 players and it wasn't TOO BAD, sure with 32 it will be much smoother and if NO 200 PINGERS are in server. At times it even locked up for a split second before moving along again. Graphically this is an incredible game, Realism it's still a GAME and more ARCADE than SIMULATION. You want SIMULATION get Operation Flashpoint 2 when it comes out for REALISM.
Getting points is much easier especially if you hurt someone bad and your teamate kills him you get points for the inury - I didn't capture a single flag because it's a huge map with 64 in it, and yes it is TEAM based no doubt, me being one of the most hated people online I of course was never HEALED by any medics. Weapons are easy to come by just steal a dead comrads when you are low, you can also get health this way. Now my personal opinion. This game is not much BETTER than 42 or BFV even with all the hype. It's NOT THAT GREAT. Now mind you this is only a demo and it has several issues ALREADY, I received a memory error during the game and it locked whole system up, and I had to do a cold boot to get back into Windows. The scary part about this is the FULL game is DONE by the most part and this DEMO is complete but of only one map and with all the issues I've seen already I can only imagine the BF2 Forum even though it isn't open yet - ONLY SMART MOVE BY EA. I must say I also called this FACT before it was released on their BFV forum that the BF2 forum will be identical to the BFV forum with all the BAD PRESS and people complaining... It's coming... LOL.
With everything maxed out and a half decent system the game LOOKS AWESOME and is pretty smooth at times but the HYPE does not match the game. It's in my book OOOK...
Don't ever believe all the HYPE and of course this is only my opinion. After playing some more - as I said I only gave it a one hour play and this is my FIRST IMPRESSION. I will post more when I do some testing in smaller servers about LAG, or any other issues that come up. It's definately worth the download but still not sure on the purchase of the FULL version, but I guess that's too late for me because I PRE-ORDERED... LOL.
Finally after a whole night of trying to get it, mind you this is a 565MB download. I finally got it on a my Newsgroups, because of the speed I can download at. It took about a half hour once the guy who already had it from the 6:00PM release and finished posting it about 9:30PM. Getting it totally downloaded and extracted then the install - everything went what seemed to be flawlessly. Then came a reboot - you really don't have to if you already had DX 9.0C which if you have SP2 on XP you do. Another great thing is it hides the latest and greatest Nvidia Nforce Drivers within the install and asks you to install - say YES if you want the latest at 77.30. These are NOT WHQL though.
Ok after the reboot came starting the game. Guess what it blinks on and then back to desktop??? I'm like here we go again EA what a bunch of idiots. I then had to edit my Videodefault.con file to ShowAllRefresh rates from 0 to 1, as you do in BF42 and BFV, again this isn't fixed YET???
Tried it once again after the edit still NO GO, same result. I use a thing called Reforce to force in registry refresh rates for my monitor to lock 144HZ for 1024x768. I had to use this program and set everything back to DEFAULT. This and the edit of file mentioned earlier, fixed the issue and the game started. FINALLY... It was now about 10PM EST. Here is another great trick to get into the game much quicker instead of watching all those promo's and movies period. Just rename the MOVIE folder MOVIE_ with the underscore and the file can't call on the .BIK files so you get in instantly. You won't have movies in back ground either but who really cares?
Ok once into the game comes the REAL fun part, the set up of a joystick and mouse and keyboard. Not much different than 42 or BFV just a bit more complex. To erase a key setting just click on item and hit ESC. It at least tells you now where a same key is set so you can figure it out just use the ESC trick so you can set them until you get everything the way you perfer. Make sure you hit apply or it won't save, then you'll have to go back and do it all over again - I hit apply constantly just to not lose anything.
Now I set my Video card settings in Windows to Application Controlled on everything and Quality. No AF or AA are set in driver - just letting the applications control this. In game I set to Hardware for Sound and left EAX checked and maxed every setting possible out for graphics in game and saved as Custom. You then create an account with email and password and whatever name you want. Now comes up the first screen much more complex than BFV for choosing an online game. I also set my connection from LAN to Cable better than 256 or whatever it says there.
Now to the game, short and sweet - that's not my impression. It's much faster paced than a BFV, but it's very jumpy - not sure if mouse is set too sensitive or what but if I turned real quick it did a complete 360 and confused the hell out of me. I don't think anyone will get a ONE SHOT kill in this game unless aiming and hitting the HEAD with every shot? I was sniping and you can get a ONE SHOT KILL if you get a head shot. Tags are still going to be the way to play obviously - they light up you have a target. This game has a few more REALISTIC features like running then getting tired. Shooting is a bit odd and it uses short bursts and doesn't just keep firing until gun is empty - this takes some getting used to. I must have missed a button to change this but I only played for about an hour, unless it depends on the gun used. When I thought I should EASILY be hitting someone, it WASN'T. Not sure if it's just the graphics or LAG? YES folks this game still LAGS... BAD at times - I was in a game with 64 players and it wasn't TOO BAD, sure with 32 it will be much smoother and if NO 200 PINGERS are in server. At times it even locked up for a split second before moving along again. Graphically this is an incredible game, Realism it's still a GAME and more ARCADE than SIMULATION. You want SIMULATION get Operation Flashpoint 2 when it comes out for REALISM.
Getting points is much easier especially if you hurt someone bad and your teamate kills him you get points for the inury - I didn't capture a single flag because it's a huge map with 64 in it, and yes it is TEAM based no doubt, me being one of the most hated people online I of course was never HEALED by any medics. Weapons are easy to come by just steal a dead comrads when you are low, you can also get health this way. Now my personal opinion. This game is not much BETTER than 42 or BFV even with all the hype. It's NOT THAT GREAT. Now mind you this is only a demo and it has several issues ALREADY, I received a memory error during the game and it locked whole system up, and I had to do a cold boot to get back into Windows. The scary part about this is the FULL game is DONE by the most part and this DEMO is complete but of only one map and with all the issues I've seen already I can only imagine the BF2 Forum even though it isn't open yet - ONLY SMART MOVE BY EA. I must say I also called this FACT before it was released on their BFV forum that the BF2 forum will be identical to the BFV forum with all the BAD PRESS and people complaining... It's coming... LOL.
With everything maxed out and a half decent system the game LOOKS AWESOME and is pretty smooth at times but the HYPE does not match the game. It's in my book OOOK...
Don't ever believe all the HYPE and of course this is only my opinion. After playing some more - as I said I only gave it a one hour play and this is my FIRST IMPRESSION. I will post more when I do some testing in smaller servers about LAG, or any other issues that come up. It's definately worth the download but still not sure on the purchase of the FULL version, but I guess that's too late for me because I PRE-ORDERED... LOL.
posted by Cellar Dweller at 11:46 AM
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