the first person shooter game thread (eew fps)

[Obiwanshinobi]

You don't hear someone praising SoFII singleplayer very often, but I enjoyed it back in the day. Still terrific EAX + that software quasi-3D audio trick (I use stereo headphones) and - arguably - the best ricochet sound around. Some fine weapons and nasty grenades, just the way it should be (like in the original Max Payne). No ragdoll whatsoever, though, which looked really hockey even in 2003-2004.
Fun fact - if you have a joypad with vibrations hooked up while playing SoFII Gold Edition, it performs the complete set of vibrations (I assume the game supports mouses with vibrtaion feedback).
I would like to try out the famous multiplayer, but this whole patch vs patch thing renders me confused (and I'm afraid it's not very noob-friendly a game at this point).

[dcharlie]

had already played HL2 (first one, skipped the episodes),

ep 1 is largely forgettable - but ep 2 ... :O

End sequence is great.

On that note , not an FPS as it lacks the S, but Portal is free on Steam until May 24th. I mean... it's mandatory gaming basically. Utterly fantastic. Worth it just for the voice acting.

[Enhasa]

Heh, yes I've played Portal (and the expansion), I do have a 360 after all. I thought it was alright but definitely worth playing once, don't get me wrong. It was a neat concept and yeah the setting, voice acting, script, and all that was great, but I mostly just care about gameplay and I thought Portal was insultingly easy both as a puzzle game and in execution. The expansion was particularly bad because it literally added no new puzzle concepts. If anything, the main game was guilty of just recycling the same couple of ideas too (I actually would have preferred it to be even shorter to be honest). I don't think I'm gonna bother with the sequel unless I get the impression they can actually come up with new puzzles around the existing framework. Should have just ended with dignity and glory with Narbacular Drop, IMHO.

I'm probably the wrong person to talk to though, since I'm one of those grumpy bastards who think western gaming (eastern too, but especially western) has been all downhill since the 90s. For puzzlers, gimme some Lemmings or TIM or DROD please. Let's not let this BS spill into this thread though, there are enough west vs east shitty threads already.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I'm going to say only - World of Goo is one cracking western puzzler, oozing imagination, fresh ideas and brilliant execution. Not my all-time top ten or anything, but it shows that western developers have genuinely new ideas every now and then too.

[Ed Oscuro]

You don't hear someone praising SoFII singleplayer very often, but I enjoyed it back in the day. Still terrific EAX + that software quasi-3D audio trick (I use stereo headphones) and - arguably - the best ricochet sound around. Some fine weapons and nasty grenades, just the way it should be (like in the original Max Payne). No ragdoll whatsoever, though, which looked really hockey even in 2003-2004.
Fun fact - if you have a joypad with vibrations hooked up while playing SoFII Gold Edition, it performs the complete set of vibrations (I assume the game supports mouses with vibrtaion feedback).
I would like to try out the famous multiplayer, but this whole patch vs patch thing renders me confused (and I'm afraid it's not very noob-friendly a game at this point).

Actually, I noticed the enemies being pushed into various positions to align with the floor, so it's semi-ragdoll...it was pretty common to see one hand or leg up on a railing, or somebody sliding diagonally down a hill. The ramom mission generator is a neat idea but it's a shame you can't "collect" the medals to get a full set to view later.

On that note , not an FPS as it lacks the S, but Portal is free on Steam until May 24th. I mean... it's mandatory gaming basically. Utterly fantastic. Worth it just for the voice acting.

You can shoot radios through the Aperture Science Material Emancipation Grid, shoot turrets at turrets, and shoot plasma orbs at things (indirectly).

Painkiller sounds sweet though.

It is, you just either have to like massive monster fights and ideally also jumping all over things (rarely, using some physics puzzles) to find all the secrets. Not having a sense of virtual fear of fights is recommended for the game.

[Ed Oscuro]

Forgot to mention that I appreciated SoF II more after having watched The Dogs of War with Christopher Walken - the MM-1 is in the game (minus the little toggle thing at the back) and featured on the movie poster.

tl;dr review of Payback: Dumb shooty game, done in like six hours, don't pay for it, at least.

I finished the Soldier of Fortune game franchise with Payback on the PC, a port from the 360 / PS3, I'm guessing. It isn't a part of the series that I can see (and didn't expect it to be), even though the game developers seem to believe this game is a sequel from the inept way the story got handled. The music is average to slightly above, but reused (and doesn't always really fit the theme, plus it was good at the end when two tracks started playing at the same time, even after reloading). Geometry and models look excellent but show far more detail than the actual gameplay seems to warrant with the only slowdowns - albeit gigantic ones - in a specific part of the Garage level; Payback is pretty decent looking for running well at 1920x1200 on a GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB. The outdoor scenes cry for destructible foliage and generally more constructive use of the Havok system, though. The maps are constructed piecemeal out of prefabricated bits. It feels like the whole mess was cobbled from purchased assets, and I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case. In many ways it's worse than Contract JACK, a game that couldn't have been made without some preexisting assets.

Even with a weapon loadout system (pick two main weapons, then a pistol, and configure them if possible), the game is console-lite. There's regenerating health (useful), checkpoints (rewarding in a way), bosses (strategy for the tough ones on foot: run up to their face and shoot them repeatedly with a light machine gun, switch to another when out of ammo - avoid the M249 and the RPK type thing; strategy for other bosses: shoot continuously and hide as appropriate), and not-too-difficult "mazes" that sometimes have a single weapon with 24 shells at the end, joy. If you have trouble with a stage you can restart it from the main menu and choose a new loadout. The long-ish checkpoints were a specific complaint with one reviewer; my only problem is that at one point I was right next to something that blew up whenever I loaded, but I was able to run away from it in time. Perhaps it's easier than the console versions, or perhaps a professional game reviewer out there needs to buck up.

It's not great to find a good shotgun hidden under a staircase, only to find that you can't use ammo from another type of shotgun; or to find a hidden submachine gun with 80 rounds in reserve - that's not enough to be helpful for long. There are some exotic weapons in here (like the humorously-named three-barrel ALX pistol, which appears to sort of be a Metal Storm pistol) but they generally aren't very useful (even the RPG-7 which will be heavily limited by its ammo count, and the "CAR-12" is a semiautomatic rifle without a standard scope for chrissakes), though the ACR-2 sniper you unlock at the main menu - when starting a new game - turned out to be useful against a "boss" in an APC turret. I'm glad I figured out at the first stage that I needed to outfit a weapon of the type I was likely to find throughout the level because ammo will run out otherwise, and you'll end up with that gun anyway - except without accessories, like a basic scope (depending on the stage, I found the collimator or the 4x32 to be the best options). Too bad the AK grenade launcher isn't an option.

There is a difficulty ramp; the first wholly indoor mission you'll come across, the last set of levels, has the only thing in the game I really had to give a wide berth: Dudes with shotguns (especially dudes with shotguns behind cover; ones rushing you could almost always be taken out as they stupidly ran to try to hit you with the butt of their gun, like a quarter of the guys in the entire game seem to do). They were pretty annoying until I started chucking grenades - and discovered that you can shoot straight through glass doors without them even moving. It also became very apparent that the sound system is horribly broken; not only is there no sonic boom from enemy shots (like most games) but the sound from enemy weapons drops off so quickly that you can be on the other side of a large room and not hear them firing. Oddly, those damn shotguns seemed to do much more damage than AKs; where four Iraqi terrorists or five African mine guards weren't able to do squat, one guy at the far end of a room with a shotgun could take me out, often instantly. There were some moments of instant death in the very first stage (fire = barrier, of course, also looking up a staircase toward a room with a "sniper" I got shot by a guy); I think the game must count head shots against you sometimes. The surprise deaths would make it aggravating to try for the "Real Deal" achievement on the 360 / PS3 (Iron Man RPG-style, no dying allowed). I found the shotgun a bit fun and useful to mess around with, but no replacement for automatic rifles and LMGs. Grenades were better (when they weren't bouncing off walls the wrong way, same problem as SoF II) when had to clear guys out I couldn't see, and they did that excellently. I never ran out of 'em when I needed them (they're useless against bosses, of course). Sometimes I packed along the six-shot grenade launcher (ACR-6) but then left it for another weapon. The M203 seemed essentially useless for me, as was any weapon which didn't have ammo in the map or which took a valuable spot for a weapon (like the SMGs, even though many can be dual-wielded) that had available ammo.

I never thought I'd see an African marked simply "slave" in modern media (which was sort of accurate per the ridiculous story, but couldn't they have written "enslaved miner" instead? It's so much more...flattering, by comparison). Somewhere it is mentioned that you're following a terrorist group with members marked by a type of tattoo (you'll never see it in the world, if it's there, because boss characters' heads are covered with blood after you're done). There's fourteen levels total (a single introductory stage in Iraq, four in some place in Africa, then in groups of three to the unexpected ending). At the beginning of the game, you hear some stuff about a Chinese diplomat being a whistleblower against the Chinese Government using slave labor to create a pipeline (note: not the same slaves as the one mentioned above), but after that next stage you never hear about it again - instead it's stuff about some new terrorists, a handoff of something, and by the end people are talking about "THE DEVICE" which is apparently something in a briefcase. None of it fits together. At one point the player character looks out over what appears to be a pine forest and says something like "Whoaaa, I could get high just from looking at all this product!" Drugs? Huh? It especially doesn't fit together when the game cuts out immediately after boss battles, which I guess is appropriate as the player character apparently doesn't check that targets are dead and just runs off without wrapping things up (in the real world you'd run screaming from these battles, of course, but the storyline demanded more). The player character's intelligence analysts deserve top awards for being able to tie all this garbage together, because the game developers sure didn't.

I can't help but feel if you somehow combined the best of Payback (the visuals, and some of the gameplay ideas) with the best of the original Dead to Rights (the imagination, storyline, and some of the gameplay ideas), you'd then have a good game. Let's hope that DTR on the new consoles doesn't come out as a "budget" title like this. Payback most reminds me of Project I.G.I.: I'm Going In, except with more up-to-date mechanics (but no wall lean as in SoF II, not that it matters), a slightly more forgiving save system (i.e. IGI has no mid-level saves at all; gives things a sense of urgency - let's see these pansy game reviewers tackle THAT one!), much less freedom of movement, a terrible asinine story (even by IGI standards), no real sense of accomplishment (at least on Normal; the few parts I got momentarily stuck on were just mildly annoying), and finally Payback seems to be shorter (it's really short; I never beat all of IGI though).

Payback has the temerity to suggest there will be a sequel, which I suppose I should be thankful for because this cut down on the amount of story crap they could shoehorn in the game. As it was, Payback was truly idiotic and seemed borderline racist at points (i.e. "YOUR people are TERRORISTS;" haha, there's also a Russian woman who REALLY BADLY WANTS TO GIVE YOU A LAP DANCE! ), so the parade of non sequitur events and references to characters can be assumed dead with the commercial and critical failure of this game and unlikely to bother us again. I didn't intend to write a novel about this mess - but somehow it's happened again, damn.

[KBZ]

Killing Floor has been released for mac. The world will never be the same

[Ed Oscuro]

Killing Floor has been released for mac. The world will never be the same

On Steam I take it?

Update: Fooled around with Clive Barker's Undying again, messed around with system.ini and user.ini to get widescreen working, and also to upgrade the quality of the graphics slightly. Pretty good so far, playing on Nightmare and even Howlers are a bother (though all I have is the pistol, so far; yeah I'm just a few minutes in this play, found a new Amplifier though, which is the first for me so far).

[Khan]

Undying, ah man now I gotta go hunt my copy down I think I last saw it at the back of my desk under the pile of crap gathered over the last few months lol

[CptRansom]

Figured I'd post this here to see if I can get some help. I decided I felt like playing an FPS for a wild change of pace; then I remembered I had STALKER and always wanted to play it but couldn't run it on my old computer. I've heard the game is pretty blah without certain mods, and I was just wondering if anyone had any suggestions before I get started on it. My laptop isn't very powerful, so feel free to leave out any crazy high-res texture packs and the like.

[Ed Oscuro]

I hear that after playing it the first time you might want to try out the "Oblivion Lost" mod, which attempts to take it back to playing like the original concept of the game.

What I used was a shader mod. It was called Float32 and hosted at thefloatingpoint.org (or maybe .com). Website's gone and I can't vouch for the quality of safety of the mod versions you'll find online, but I don't think it messed with me too badly, and a version was made for Clear Sky too. It definitely made a huge difference in visuals; bumped up the video card usage too though.

[Ed Oscuro]

So Half-Life 2 and Episode 1 finally have Achievements. They seemed buggy (I had to find the secret Vortigaunt over and over...finally rebooted my PC, that did it, and restarted map d1_canals_13 from the console). I find that sv_infinite_aux_power 1 is very useful and isn't counted as a cheat! You get infinite battery + sprint, but the counter stays onscreen at new map if you leave it on, so you have to toggle it off, hit flashlight or sprint, then put it back.

4.4 hours, done with Episode 1, got all the Achievements in one playthrough (not counting a couple false starts when I found I couldn't get Pacifist from restarting the second chapter, so I restarted the game). I got two of the "hardest" ones, Conservationist and Think Fast!, almost right away (third and second, iirc). Conservationist I did when entering a certain room in the core containment section, with a ball track outside and four or five soldiers on the floor within, and two above (one drops down). I only played the default (easy?) difficulty, which was enough.

Interesting point - there's some foreshadowing of EP2 after the credits, and having played EP2 before I can tell that most of them made it into the game. Alyx's whispers at the beginning seem tied to an old EP2 promotional video which showed her dangling from a train bridge, which was used to showcase Valve's new highly destructible environments, which didn't make it into the final EP2 beginning.

I started working on HL2 before, which should be more interesting (not to mention longer), and thankfully the only "no guns" area is Ravenholm (which I'm in right now). It's interesting how hard I'm finding stuff to punt with the gravity gun, considering Ravenholm's reputation as gravity gun playland.

[Damocles]

I finally redeemed my code for Call of Duty Classic on the 360. I friggin hate WW2 in game form, but since I just came off of The Saboteur I figured what the hell. On Veteran, it's a damn sight better than most of the other CODs. No health respawn and no health packs makes it play like an easier version of Project IGI. It does not, however, auto-save if your health is low.

Enemies and allies alike are hit-and-miss when it comes to AI. Sometimes enemies randomly become omniscent, while at other times they're friggin sloths. Your team acts much the same way. Sometimes they'll take the lead and clear out a tough section. Other times they won't move until you're already taking heavy fire. I should clarify: On the first run through a segment they might blaze a trail. If you die and have to restart that segment there is a very good chance they won't do crap. Quite odd.

Good stuff, but I'm glad it was free. It almost makes up for the huge disappointment MW2 SP is.

[Damocles]

I should add, however, that COD1 has to be the most blatant example of a "Monster in the Box" (euphemism ahoy!) FPS. Pull a switch - Nazi through the now-open door. Enter a doorway - Nazi down the hall. Blow something up - Zerg rush.

I do think it's funny when the AI tells you to mount a machine gun. Like I'm going to get in a place where I can't move and can't dodge fire.

[Khan]

Installed Battlefield bad company 2 so far only played like an hour of the SP im definantly liking the look and feel although the AI seems as dumb as the old BF games, gonna try MP as soon as Im done with the single player campaign.

[Ed Oscuro]

the AI seems as dumb as the old BF games

eh wot

Was PC BF2: Modern Combat really bad? What with there only being a handful of small versions of the maps to play against AI...Or is this in relation to the Xbox / 360 versions of BF2 (haven't played but want to)? In any case BF really shines in multiplayer, as always.

[Ed Oscuro]

Oh yeah, finished Undying a few days ago.

I had a much easier go of it, though savestate abuse was necessary on the hardest difficulty setting. I had six unused amplifiers (spell level-up items) at the end simply because I wasn't sure if I needed anything more by the end of the game. I had well over 150 health items. There's a whole lot of shit but only some of it turns out to be useful:

Early game setup - pistol, ectoplasm (I maxed it, though post-Howlers it seems useless), scrye (I dropped a level in it for no apparent reason; I'm not sure what the point is)
Don't drop any spell levels into dispel, eventually dropped just one level into shield for getting a specific item hovering in a column of flame (late in the game). Putting levels into Invoke is tempting, as it really makes a couple sections of the game go much easier (about the 1/3 mark into the game), but I needed those amplifiers later. I would put at least one level into it, though.

Mid-game setup (post-Oneiros) - Tibetan War Cannon and skull storm (I maxed this). The War Cannon is annoying to use but consumes no ammo and additionally slows enemies.
End-game (perhaps as much as half the game): Scythe, Haste (maxed immediately), occasionally skull storm and more rarely special-use spells (I consider Shield special-use; it's too much work to continue scrolling through the spell list for too short a period of benefit; macros would break this game so much).

The Scythe of the Celts changes everything; I used that with Haste almost exclusively through the rest of the game, including on bosses. It got kinda old, actually, maybe I ought to have played Rune instead. That said, it's nicest late in the game when you've got enough Arcane Whorls to stop its mana depletion effect completely. The only problems are that it can start draining health from enemies while they're still alive, leaving your left hand useless as you can't switch away from the folded-up scythe (though Haste usually means this isn't much of a problem, just run away), and secondly it has a long wind-up, even with max haste on. You also need to switch away from it briefly to get your mana back quickly (though I only used Haste with this weapon because Haste has the annoying tendency to peter out in mid-battle). Hitting the alternate weapon function puts the red glow around the weapon icon, which is what you want in combat (assuming the enemy gives back health).

I saved the shotgun for special occasions. Didn't make sense to run around using it on Howlers and such when ammo might be scarce. Likewise for the silver bullet ammunition (useful on that Ziggurat climb though).

[Damocles]

Metro 2033 was actually pretty OK. Not great, but not horrible. The atmosphere is wonderful and makes me want to read the book to hopefully flesh out the story a bit more...even with the changes the game brought. Gotta love the silhouettes. I just wish they had been incorporated further. Oddly enough, the game is at it's best when fighting other humans. I say it's odd because you would think the environment and mutants would be key. However, fighting melee-only creatures is almost always ho-hum. The gas mask system also turned out to be relatively nonexistent. Initially they cause a bit of stress when you think you'll run out. However, the game throws them at you whenever you need them. As long as you don't dick around too incredibly much you won't have a problem. Strangely, I found the most fun in the pneumatic weapons. There's nothing like over-pumping a glorified BB gun for an insta-kill. I wish there were more as they're a great, and silent, alternative to bog-standard weapons. Overall, a good rental, but not much more.

[Ed Oscuro]

Overall, a good rental, but not much more.

How can I return my game to the Steam Store?

Anyway, good call. Reminds me of a review for STALKER if it were made today and people were over the free-roaming bit. The muties in that were pretty lame.

[Damocles]

Word on the street is that Metro 2033 came from people who split from the STALKER company before it was released. ...with possible tech from that game.

[Ed Oscuro]

I should've figured as much - METRO also came from the Ukraine, right?

[Damocles]

I should've figured as much - METRO also came from the Ukraine, right?

Yep.


It's amusing to play COD1 while remembering the rest in the series. It's very obvious to see how Infinity Ward has progressed, or rather has not, as the series went on. Apparently omniscent enemies with instant targeting abilities have always been a staple of the series. Whether or not the system was influenced by Halo, infinite health in the later series unfortunately fits much better. Then again, they tried to balance that with infinite enemies up until MW2. I hate to be incredibly negative, but it seems as if the inability to program adequate AI lead to most of the prominent features in this series. It's almost like they went "Gee, this new health system is awesome! Let's put that in! Oh crap, now it's too easy. Fuck it. Make neverending enemy closets." Too bad the Treyarch iterations flat-out clone this formula. ...come to think of it, MOH: Allied Assault (I think it was) was done by most of these chaps. That game had the exact same problems as COD1.

Take this with a grain of salt as I enjoyed OF: Dragon Rising the most this generation.

Also,
To whoever decided melee on a thumbstick was a good idea:
Fuck you.

[1up]

just watched the trailer for the new XCOM game. it looks goddamn awesome. im a sucker for that 40s / 50s theme though, and I dont see where the XCOM comes in to play? Im a big fan of enemy unknown and terror from the deep, but I have no problem that it gets a FPS reboot.

To me it looked like Biochosk (gunplay/lightning gun/weird grenade) but without plasmids and above the sea and with aliens instead of splicers. And I have no problem with that at all as I loved both Bioshock games to death.

im hyped and want to know more

[Khan]

Yea I completed Metro 2033 last month and to be honest it wasnt a bad game I quite enjoyed it but unfortunatly once its over its over there is nothing really to go back to, why oh why couldnt have they added Multi player? I gotta admit though the pneumatic guns rocked but the whole idea of trading REAL bullets for fake (if there is such a thing) bullets was sorta of lame lol

[Damocles]

The shop system in Metro 2033 is ultimately pointless. As long as you don't spray at every damn thing you'll never run out of ammo. Ok...maybe for the Tihart, or whatever the pneumatic sniper rifle is. I think I bought one item, a scoped AK, out of curiosity. Too bad, I didn't learn about the VSV until my second run. God that gun is awesome.

[Ed Oscuro]

The shop system in Metro 2033 is ultimately pointless.

That's been true in every FPS I've ever played. This includes Morrowind and Oblivion.

Anyway, two days or so ago I got Action DOOM 2. It's intended to be more brawler than shooter, but considering it's on the DOOM engine, is first person, and there are shooting weapons, I'll call it a shooter. Especially since I got tired and played it that way. A shooter with a melee fixation. It would be much simpler to list what it doesn't do well - melee combat, unfortunately - than what it does well - everything else! But don't take that 'lol the combat sux' as a cue to skip out on this one: Overall, I found it much more interesting and playable than the original, and even a number of other wildly successful DOOM mods and games in the same mold. In many ways I find it just as interesting now as DOOM and its clones were back in the day, back before shooting became passe. This could use something extra for combat, but had this appeared back in the day it would have rocked house - the original Aliens vs Predator project may have overshadowed DOOM II's release but this would have blown them both away. The modern-day release date is no reason to let this languish in obscurity. Action DOOM II is legitimately stylish, has great music, amazing maps, (especially the forest / farm path), has multiple endings, a bonus *.wad for extra fun times (including the opportunity to make a DOOM engine game halt your computer with the Zombies map; too bad they don't let you in that stadium), and just oozes incredible ambience. You even get some hilariously misplaced "edgy" humor - the rather enthusiastic gay-bashing from DOOMGUY at the end of the first map is just the start of it, trust me. All the new engine features available in zDOOM are made use of, including a number I wasn't aware existed.

Okay, about that combat. Fighting is mainly closing range - taking a quick swing - ducking out. Repeat as needed. You get fists (left jab, harder right punch, and uppercut in the main game; there's a special move involving a familiar cat face but that seems to be special only). You also get lots of weapons - most of which break very quickly - and you can't item juggle. To drop something is to destroy it. There's a a pistol (always kept in inventory) for emergencies (you also can find an Uzi and another weapon I won't spoil, other than to say keep looking around the final boss arena, you'll get it eventually) or when you're bored with punching.

My thoughts on combat: It's repetitive and not particularly amazing, but then again, even Condemned: Criminal Origins feels inauthentic most of the time. And even DOOM gets repetitive, especially in the hands of inexpert mappers. Guns you just point and pull a trigger, but fists you actually have to swing to get the feeling - not to mention the flexibility of actual hand-to-hand combat, versus guns that only chatter a single tune. Basically, combat is here just to give you something to do and to advance the idea of DOOMGUY as "hardass killer." It's filler, and I eventually just threw on the cheetz and blasted shit up because the melee wasn't really drawing me in after the first map. To be quite honest with you, almost every FPS I've played ends up becoming something like a brainless version of Uru Live: Myst Online, meaning that instead of puzzles to work through once, you just have to keep sharp reflexes. It helps keep the difficulty level engagement consistent, but not really long-term intellectually or emotionally stimulating (same with any Myst age you've already puzzled through). It's a rare excellent FPS (usually of the multiplayer variety) that keeps you engaged long-term (sadly Action DOOM 2 has no multiplayer component, though it would be incredibly awkward).

Everything else really drew me in, especially the stuff intended to provoke "dear god why" reactions. Unfortunately, even with the wide variety of stuff, this is very quick to finish off (especially with cheats - I just didn't want the melee to overstay its welcome too badly). Yet what was there was some of the finest entertainment I've had in memory.

Best quote of the game: "Sometimes these things don't work." (Download and play the game for context!)

In other news, Blah blah blah!

[Drum]

Bullstorm looks

[Khan]

So ive been playing Battlefield bad company 2 and so far racked up around 30 hours, thankfully compared to bf2 theres ALOT of weapons and gadgets to unlock but these can only be unlocked after scoring points and it takes hours depending on the server your in and the quality of the players you face. For example I was on a server yesterday and there was 2 level 50 players and the rest where level 25+ I'm level 13 and so far unlocked most of the good stuff but could only manage to get around 15 kills per game along with like 12 deaths it really is hard to compete against the other team if your own team mates are lower level...thankfully servers have the option to auto shuffle/balance teams so that can help sometimes.

The one thing that bugs me is how poor the medic class is in this version, its like you get to choose LMG's which in theory would be cool cept they dont seem to damage as much I mean the PKM sux big time compared to in BF2 where one or two hits on an enemy and it was game over in this game I unload like 50 bullets and the guy is still standing lol also the points when reviving a player need to be upped as it stands currently the medic class seems to be the least used in this game which is a real shame because a good team of medics and assault working in unison could dominate easily.

Recon is a class I like to play when the teams are outbalanced the sniper rifles are alot cooler and you have alot more in this game, the GOL and the SV98 are my favs at the moment Ive yet to unlock the m95 which was my second fav in bf2 (SVD was my fav ) the abilaity to call in a mortar strike rocks! but I cannot stress enough how important it is to tap the communication key when you see enemy personell and spot them , alot of snipers and recon people dont even do that and play like total idiots tbh, did I mention how fun it is to C4 a building with enemies already in there? what a rush lol

Engineer is cool too the M2 CG owns when you get to unlock it and the same with the Scar equipped with a 4X optic sight for those long range kills. Armor in this game is alot easier to get rid of since people can use Tracer darts, they are darts that come from your tracer gun that attach themselves to whatever they are shot at, which enables you to shoot your rocket in the air and it'll home into your target from pretty much anywhere VERY COOL.

Assault is my Fav class some of the guns are deadly and a couple of hits in the right spots and its gameover for your opponent, the good old noob tube is here altho seems a little weaker and you can also use the smoke attachment and the double grenade option to boost your munition total when you spawn. You also have ammo box so can supply your team with ammo and yourself too so if you can get toghether with another team mate and both drop ammo boxes on the floor you could pretty much nade spam/tube spam a spot constantly since you restock pretty quickly that way.

Helis/Choppers suck in this game, they seem hella weak and I dont know if i have to unlock or something but in bf2 when you have a rocket home'd in you can drop flares plus the controls in this game means I cant effectily use my mouse to fly it either grrrr it sux so I try to avoid flying the heli, even being a gunner you no longer have access as far as I can tell to the TV missile and your shots do ALOT less damage compared to the previous game not to mention the reload time is horrendous.

Hitboxes are as gay as ever and before u ask the main reason why I put it like nearly 1000 hours in BF2 was because I used to game with a few other squad players who played the game like it was meant to be played and that was with real team work no solo gunning and dying like crazy and yes I did my best to put up with it but battlefield's hit box detection always has and will always suck, its all about distance and luck for example I got shot from something like a 100 metres with a shot gun and died at at the time I had a PKM I unloaded dead on the guys head and it missed lol there is bullet drop in this game series and you can tell especially if your sniper its best to aim above their heads depending on the distance your from your target. It annoys me greatly when you knife someone too and instead of actually killing them they turn around and knife you back killing you instantly stupid bugs :*(

There are ways to fix this ive read I might try it but all in all I would say im enjoying it I just wish they would bring it back so you can have more people in your squad since 4 is not enough.

[Zaarock]

The one thing that bugs me is how poor the medic class is in this version, its like you get to choose LMG's which in theory would be cool cept they dont seem to damage as much I mean the PKM sux big time compared to in BF2 where one or two hits on an enemy and it was game over in this game I unload like 50 bullets and the guy is still standing lol also the points when reviving a player need to be upped as it stands currently the medic class seems to be the least used in this game which is a real shame because a good team of medics and assault working in unison could dominate easily.

Afaik medic is actually the fastest for getting points. Running around throwing med packs and reviving everyone can easily get you on the top of the points leaderboard in a match. M60 was overpowered before the recent patch (it did the same dmg per bullet as semi auto snipers)

Choppers are fine, and for flares the driver needs to have smoke vehicle spec. Quick reload is useful too obviously. Apache/Havok can fire hellfires at traced vehicles if the driver has alternate fire specialization.

Havent played the game in like a month myself, starting to play again now (on 360) as some people I used to play with are trying it again.

[Damocles]

Anyone else actually excited about Sniper: Ghost Warrior? When I saw the reveal trailor, and after a long groan in regards to the name, my interest was actually raised a bit. After checking out the tactics and multiplayer vids I'm quite excited as it looks to be, basically, an updated version of Sniper Elite. ...and there's wind. I could be wrong, but I don't believe wind has been incorporated into a FPS like this before.

Here's hoping they don't make it a friggin run and gun.