Seppli's 100h PS3 Beta Review
*Disclaimer* Copy 'n Paste from my Review/Feedback I made on the official EA UK PS3 Beta Battlefield Forums
Graphics:
+Viewing Distance (incredible)
+Drawing Distance (except for some minor pop-ins, absolutely insane!)
+Character Models (highly detailed)
+Animations
+Particle Effects
+Destruction/Deformation
+Ragdoll Physics
-No AA
-Drawing Distance Glitches (Pop-ins)
-Scope Glitches (Graphical Errors)
-Scope Graphics (look unfinished)
-No highly visible muzzle flash (as seen in BF:BC 1)
-Difference between Russian Recon High-Poly Model and Low-Poly Model too obvious (switches too soon between high poly and low poly model too)
Sound:
+Destinct Sounds for every vehicle and weapon
+Great Surround Sound
+Deafening Explosions
-not yet as good BF:BC 1
-Noise doesn't seem to travel as far, as in BF:BC 1
-less upbeat flair than the first game (I especially miss the rewarding pin-jingle, which has been burned positively into my synapses for life)
Gunplay:
+Excellent Ballistics Simulation (Bullet Drop and Traveltime are spot-on)
+Every gun handles differently, every gun is deadly - a matter of preference, perfect!
+Excellent Balance between Scopes and Ironsights (via Specializations)
+Bulletdamage feels spot-on
+Getting hit throws aim off
+Ragdoll physics are awesome! Love 'em! Makes Kills look insanely visceral!
+Hitdectection vastly improved
-probably a little shotgun buff (higher onehit kill range, a little more spread)
-other than that - nothing. It's bloody perfect!
Vehicles:
+Tanks put a team in-front of a big problem that has to be solved (very powerful maincannon - onehitkill & splashdamage, spot-on projectile drop, very useful gunnerposition, take a ton of damage, destroying a tank from the front requires a fair deal of teamwork - perfect!)
+UAV fun, powerful and easy to take down - perfect to ensure Attacker's momentum by destroying the Defender's assets, love it! (especially the voice over chatter)
+ATV tons of fun, superfast, agile and very useful to get to vantage/sniping spots. Goes practically everywhere - no problem! Pefect for ninja crate arming.
+Jeep very fast too, powerful gunner position on medium range, enough time to bail out after a RPG hit
+Aim (works like ironsights) for gunner positions
+vastly improved Torque and Inertia for all vehicles
+vastly improved speed for all vehicles (they all go really fast!)
+Tight controls (I use dualstick controls)
+Damagemodel (Doors and Armorplating fall off)
+good deadzone for tank's gunner position (upwards)
-almost no deadzone for tank's gunner position (downward angle for superclose targets)
-spotting too powerful for tank's gunner position (too high range, too generous)
Map:
+ great diversity of gameplay (shifts from longrange, vehicle/anti-vehicle combat over 'urban' village warfare to CQC situations)
+Attackers are favored to ensure foward momentum
+Fun and plentiful chokepoints pitts players in intense and constant firefights
+Tons of angles to play
+Expertly paced
-Attackers can shift the mapbalance extremely in their favor by stealing the Defenders assets (tanks). Infiltrating the Defender's Vehicle Spawnpoint is a popular tactic. Excellent squadspawn makes default spawnpoints very vulnerable to such tactics.
-Defenders stealing assets (tank) takes too much momentum out of the Attacker's campaign (not as bad, because of the UAV support for Attackers to take out tanks)
Levelsystem:
+Kitspecific leveling
+Specializations all useful
+Specializations balance each other out (though and painful decisions are proof of excellent balancing)
+Specializations are gameplay altering (how I play is up to me, within the restrictions of a kit - I can tailor my soldier to my playstyle)
+good pacing (gaining utility pretty quickly, while keeping some weapons rather exclusive)
-a little too hard to obtain all weapons for all kits (kitspecific leveling makes me play medic and recon now, because I got my assault and engineer kit maxed out - even if situationally, I'd rather pick the engineer or the assault soldier - how about making pin XP freely distributable, that I can progress even if I play a maxed out kit)
Balance:
+ Perfect! (kits, specializations, gunplay, damage, vehicles and mapbalance are top notch)
-Nothing...
-...except for ninja C4-crate bashing, which seems too easy at the moment (1 guy should never be enough to take out a crate with C4, Assault shouldn't have C4 anyways)...
-...and Motion Sensors (shouldn't give away line of sight, as in point-indicators instead of the current arrow-indicators, Motion Sensor Spam is still possible, Motion Sensors should work like the Mortar Strike Designator - it should be on a fixed cooldown)
Bugs:
- 2x Freezes in 100h gameplay (as in hard-reset, one time I had to setup my PS3 again afterwards)
-About 2-3 lost connections every 6-10 hours session (as in avarage, some days I got none, other's I got quite a few)
-Sometimes Ironsights won't work (switch to other weapon and back and it works again - this bug was in BF:BC 1 too)
-Same goes for gadgets
-Picking up kits instead of disarming (there has to be a better solution, like using another button for arming/disarming)
-C4 still glitching off vehicles too easily (just give us a bit more throwing range to compensate for latency issues with C4)
-Killcam bug (shows previous instead of current killer)
-Killcam ugly (often shows wierd angles, lots of clipping issues)
-Scopes cause graphical errors.
-Pins are all over the place. Buggy as hell!
What needs to be worked on...
-Smokescreens (Smokegrenades useless in this build, same goes for Vehicle Smokescreen specialization - needs to linger longer and cover a bigger area. BF:BC 1 had a perfect smokescreen effect. Player's in a smokescreen should be impossible to be spotted, active spots should be immediately disabled)
-Scopes (models lack detail, scope causes graphical errors)
-Spotting system (too high range, too generous, spot is up for too long - balance still a tad bit off, especially for the tanks gunner position and the recon soldier)
Suggestions:
+R3 for vehicle camera (switch between first and third person view)
+For Rush MP mode - Lock Vehicles to one faction as long as they are on their original spawnpoint (to maintain mapbalance and make an end to cheap 'asset thievery' tactics)
+In-depth kit-specific and vehicle-specific tutorials and instructional videos
+Context sensitive tutorial messages in-game
+Tutorialmode for every MP-map (and MP-map layout, depending the mode)
+Shooting range (to play around with all the different weapons and to train my aiming - especially sniping at moving targets at long range. The gunplay is so much fun, it deserves it's own little playground)
+Instructional Videos for every MP-map showing off chokepoints and the most commonsense tactics (can be used as promotinal material too). Teach new players how to put the pressure on!
+Find a way to school new players into pushing and pressuring the enemy, no matter what side they're on! The more pressure, the better the pacing and the gaming experience!
Closing Comment:
Congratulations - you guys! Great game! Tight gameplay. Tight gamedesign. Fun. Intense. Deep. Beautiful. Perfectly balanced. Addictive. Endless Replayability. A vast improvement in almost every way possible! I'm sold. Best game ever.
Now you just have to make sure, that everything works as intended. Fix the pins. Finish the scopes and the smoke effects. Bring the surround sound back up to the standard you set with BF:BC 1.
If you somehow manage to school the game's gaming public to play better - with extensive tutorials and instructional videos and whatnot - well, that would be heaven on earth.
Except for some minor issues with the beta build's balance (Oneman Ninja-C4 crate bashing and overpowered, spam-friendly Motion Sensors) I am 100% happy with what I'm playing!
DICE - live long and prosper! May all involved gain a great deal of happiness, satisfaction and compensation from their work on this masterpiece.
Thanks for making my gaming life better!
Excellent!
*Disclaimer* Copy 'n Paste from my Review/Feedback I made on the official EA UK PS3 Multiplayer Beta Battlefield Forums
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