With WoW being my mistress for so long, inevitably there were tons of great games that I missed out on playing. And while it seems it is probably at the end of it’s life cycle with then impending Battlefield 3 coming out, I picked up Bad Company 2 from Steam over the weekend to see how the Battlefield series has evolved.
You see, back in the early 2000′s about 6 of my friends and myself frequently attended a local LAN party affectionately known as LanRave by Geekzoo. With a regular attendance between 30 and 80 people it took the enjoyment of multiplayer games above and beyond what you would experience online. Being most of the folks were regulars on a couple Counterstrike servers, we went to these things knowing almost everyone’s screen names. And would frequently yell it across the room in frustration or due to ownage.
And around this time, the first couple Battlefield games came out in the form of 1942, Vietnam, and the super popular Desert Combat mod. Needless to say, with its support for such a large number of folks, it made them favorites at the event.
Now if anyone of you played Desert Combat or Vietnam, you might remember how atrocious is was to try and fly a helicopter. Most people would hop in one, lift of the ground, flip over, and promptly die.
Luckily one of my friends affectionately known as Shotgun Bob, mastered the helicopter. And some of the most awesome moments involved him flying a helicopter, 2 of us manning the mounted miniguns on the side, and 4 more para-trooping into a base to capture a node under the suppressive cover fire coming from above. Once the node was taken, Bob would masterfully land the helicopter, successfully extracting us from the base, so that we could repeat the process until victory was achieved. Or someone used a well-placed anti-air gun.
Needless to say, Bad Company 2 is a bit prettier than the Battlefield games that I played. I was able to log just a couple hours over the weekend, and stumbled across a Reddit server that had a decent ping for me, so I jumped in that to see how bad I could get wrecked.
There were definitely some nuances to get the hang of in these games. Sniping proves to be difficult when you are blinded by the snow blowing in front of you the whole time. I never did get to try flying a helicopter or plane yet.
Although I imagine it will probably end in the same pain it did many years ago if I try. I am pretty sure that in the long run I am just going to keep my feet on the ground.
A .33 Kill to Death ratio definitely shows me getting wrecked. I’ve only played a couple maps so I am still not sure where all the objectives were, but that will come in time.
I also have put some more time into Minecraft, lovingly crafting my super structures. I have already finished my Death Star and I am currently working on creating Minas Tirith with a few visual embellishments planned. It still has a ways to go.
I need to flesh out the mountain that holds up the large courtyard at the top. You can see the starting portion of it in the screenshot.
I was also lucky enough to spend Friday evening with two good friends playing co-op Rainbow Six multiplayer for hours on end. While we love crushing each other under our boots in various other games, sometimes it’s awesome to be on the same team and see if you and a couple friends can mow down 50 enemies on a difficulty setting where a couple stray bullets can bring you down.
I also stepped out of Assassin’s Creed multiplayer for a little bit and spent more time on the single player story, slaughtering guards on my way to Rome’s renovation. As I am notorious for absolute completion of a game, I’ve spent more time opening new blacksmith’s and horse stables than I have progressing my story. But I will get there eventually.
