The Battlefield of sucking.
Wow. That title could just go so many ways. But hopefully I’ll clarify. Battlefield 2. Now, to start off. I have not played this game. I played its predecessor, but not it. I’m not horribly enthused about war games, World War 2 or otherwise. So to hear that this was a great game with awesome online action, really didn’t do much to sway me to buy it. I either get interested in a game or I don’t. Liking is not often culled or developed. It is, or it isn’t. However, I did get to hear about the game vicariously through some clanmates of mine. Yes. I’m in a clan. Maybe I’ll save it for another post. Anyways, they would talk about it and post their experiences, and I’ve gathered this much: When the game is good, it’s phenomenally fun, but those moments come very far and very few inbetween. Mostly it just sucks. Due to bugs, glitches, stupid programming, what have you. The number of issues the game has stops it from being fun and causes it only to be a source of frustration. Needless to say, I’m quite glad I avoided purchasing it. Not only that, but they’ve released an expansion pack WITHOUT fixing the major issues with the primary game and that’s caused a lot of angry gamers. Not only do they have a broken game, but now they’re having an expansion pushed down at them as if only to get more of their hard-earned money. The expansion unlocks special weapons and gear only accessible to those who bought it (duh) but it allows them to play in a server with that gear, with those people who have NOT bought the expansion yet. Even not having played the game I can tell this is going to unbalance it.
Now, to be on the fair side, I have heard from other people that they don’t have any real issues with the game. They say sure it has a few bugs but it’s nothing major or fun killing. So possibly my fellow clanners(Mechwarrior? Where?) are somehow those few people who just have the worst possible system configuration or a lot of bad luck. But these guys are solid, hard core gamers. Not the pick up on the weekend and play a couple of hours, but the true play in matches, leagues and ladders, I mean, they’re in a CLAN for Pete’s sake, that much alone shows their commitment to gaming. The people I’ve heard give the good review of the game aren’t hard core. They may play games, but they don’t play them as a passion. And I stay away from forums. So I’m not going to know the extreme details about the game. Forums are just an awful flamefest full of people who generally can’t compose a sentence let alone a full structured, intelligent argument.
Personally, I can feel for my clanmates. Having a good game become crappy because developers won’t fix it and seemingly only want to make the game, push it out the door, make whatever money they can off it, and then drop the game, seems to be a new trend and we’re all getting a bit sick of it. My recent pain stems from Tribes:Vengeance. I love Tribes. And I was excited at the prospect of them trying to pick the franchise back up and continue with it (After Tribes 2) and when it died, and died hard, that stung. The publisher didn’t do jack to fix the game, they had 1 patch. No cheat protection. And well, a small community already worried about the game not getting support, so when our fears were realized, it was not so pleasant.
I seriously hope this trend of developers and publishers not supporting the games they make comes to an end. And fast.
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POSTED IN: Rant
5 opinions for The Battlefield of sucking.
Chris
Jan 6, 2006 at 3:27 pm
You’re going to get a pretty skewed view of a game of you just listen to forum posts because- guess what- people just love to piss, moan, bitch and whine constantly on forums.
Anyway, it’s quite true that it’s rather annoying how they haven’t fixed certain bugs (the red name bug especially.)
But, if you think the game mostly sucks, you are sorely mistaken.
It is hands down the best FPS on the market today and will continue to be such for the forseeable future.
Matt
Jan 6, 2006 at 4:34 pm
I mentioned that I don’t read forum posts. I did not get these opinions from forums or anything like that. These are just several gentlemen expressing their grief and frustrations with the game and it’s lack of working. I’ve known them for years and they are not the type to just say “such and such sucks” They only complain when something is truly bad. They are not 14 year olds posting a bitching fit because they lost. These are responsible, mature adults with families.
I did say that when the game goes well for them, it is truly a remarkable game. I’m not denying that it’s a good game. But the times when it *is* a good game does not happen very often because of the bugs and other issues that crop up.
And if you claim it to be “hands down the best FPS on the market today” then I ask why doesn’t it work? It may have potential. But unless the game works then there’s very little point. It’s like driving a Ferrari with a flat tire, poor steering alignment issues, and only 3 cylinders firing. Hot damn you’ve got a great car, in theory, but currently? It sucks.
Chris
Jan 16, 2006 at 7:23 pm
Well, it does work… I assure you, if it didn’t work, I wouldn’t play it as frequently as I do. I’d say the glitches affect the game in a meaningful way about 3% of the time, which certainly is about 3% more than it should be. The rest of the time it’s great. Basically the one really bad bug (IMHO) is the “red name” bug accounts for most of that 3%.
Did they download the latest patches?
Chris
Jan 16, 2006 at 7:26 pm
oh yeah, one more thing, if you haven’t upgraded recently, it most certainly will run like a ferrari on 3 cylinders, with motor oil from the $1 store. I dropped $150 on a graphics card when I got it so it runs slightly better than that, if I spent another couple of hundred I’m sure it would be running on all twelve, or sixteen, or however many ferarris have
Matt
Jan 17, 2006 at 8:20 am
I’m fairly certain they’ve got some decent machine specs. And I’m sure for some people the bugs don’t occur as often as others, but I really feel the way EA has handled this game is pushing them away as well. They feel like they’re being used and gorged upon. EA’s plans to release expansion “add-ons” for 10 dollars a pop has most certainly got to be a joke. Why would I want to pay 10 dollars for 2 maps and maybe a couple of guns?? I know it’s not a joke but, when companies like Epic (Unreal Tournament) release mappacks and extra content for free. There’s something wrong here. Sadly the same thing was done with Mechwarrior 4:Mercenaries. They released two clanpaks that each gave you 2 mechs, a map or two and a couple of extra goodies for you mechs. They were about 13 bucks a piece. So for a grand total of 26 dollars I got 4 mechs, 4 maps, and 2 add-ons for the mechs. (depending on the mech). Gladly, I did not pay for these. Not that I could if I wanted to, you can’t find them anymore and people on e-bay are selling them for like 70 dollars thinking they’re a full game when they’re not.
Needless to say, it’s things like this which kill your enthusiasm for a game. When the developers go away, and the sales and marketing people take over. This is much more than just BF2 having a few bugs, it’s an affront to the way gamers are being treated nowadays, and the fact that more and more companies are doing this sort of thing with no retaliation or focused outcry from us.
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