This is purely about Xbox 360 multiplayer, as I have not yet begun the campaign (other than the tutorial mode).
My wife was working and I had the day off, so I got quite a bit of playing time in on the first day.
It looks very pretty, and the sound is amazing. I have a great sound system, and the ‘War Tapes’ audio setting is the best I have ever heard in a game.
The control layout is decent, although I would like to have seen a bit more variety/ability to map configurations. My biggest problem thus far has been squatting when I want to melee from playing so much Modern Warfare 2. Speaking of squatting, I REALLY miss the prone position from MW2. One of the things I really liked about that game was that camo meant something (by going prone in tall grass), and it still does here- Just not as well IMHO.
Movement is very natural, although it seems that you can be easily hung up on ladders, stairs, dense brush, etc.
The weapons sound good, and I like the way that they actually calculate gravity for bullet drop over distance.
The vehicles are a lot of fun, but only if you can get other people to hop in with you. At this point nobody has the common sense to have a couple of people stay in the base manning the AA and SAM sites; so a two man team in an attack chopper can easily maintain air supremacy over the opposition’s base, destroying all of their vehicles before they can use them, and still have time to patrol the objectives for targets of opportunity. Tanks are equally as fun with a full crew of people shooting out of the portholes while you drive through a position.
The class system is nicely done. I have only played the medic, but have seen the others in action. They are well balanced, although I have found the engineer rarely gets used to repair any vehicles since everyone runs them until they are destroyed.
The network seems very stable, and without lag. The matchmaking process is very fast. The interface seems a little more clunky than MW2. I am probably a moron, but I have found no graceful way to exit the game I am in (after it has finished) to play a different type without exiting to the main menu and re-entering multiplayer.
The squad based gameplay is…interesting. I had hoped it would be a clean system of 4 man squads working in concert to conquer an objective, but it has been spotty at best.
Early in the morning (0530ish) when nobody knew how to play the game, there was a lot of communication- My squad would take a building, set up a perimeter, cover doors, sniper positions, get medkits and ammo together, etc.
By early afternoon we were forming squads, but not communicating or staying together.
Before I went to bed, there were no squads to be found- just a bunch of lone wolves running around. My hopes for team based strategies appear to be going away rapidly. (Although I did still entertain myself quite a bit with the helicopters during this time. I would grab one and fly around until I saw an injured person on the map, and then fly in Medivac style. Good times)
However, the early morning session where I was working with my squadmates was worth the price of the game! The planning and plotting we were doing on the fly was awesome. Each person was taking their role seriously, and helping each other out. The other teams were doing the same, and some of the cooridinated assaults against our position (and vice-versa) were awesome!
I noticed quite a few bugs/glitches throughout the day.
- I was entangled quite a few times in brush or rocks to the point of being completely stuck, and having to commit suicide to escape.
- Twice during the day the sound just stopped mid-game, and only an exit to the main screen would correct the issue.
- For about an hour in the evening, any attempt to play “Rush” mode would crash the game to the dashboard.
- There are a few ledges that you can get on in the desert map (I can’t recall the name) where you can actually stand in the air. There are more ledges/windows/etc that trap you if you come too close to the edge. It’s as though you drop a foot, land on something, and then are unable to jump or move back in the direction you started. I was able to continue the walk off the ledge which killed me.
- During the opening storyline for the tutorial in the campaign, one of the text blocks repeated itself. I did not check to see if I could replicate this, so it may have been a one time thing.
There were other little things that I cannot remember, as they would happen mid-game and I didn’t immediately write them down.
So with that said, I enjoyed the game overall, and I think with a few tweaks it could be in my library for a loooooong time. However, if the squad-based gameplay does not come together soon, I may quit and go back to MW2. We shall see.
