So, after a weekend of playing I seem to have gotten a pretty good feel for the game.
I always play through some of the campaign before I go online. I find it helps give you a feel for the weapons. It was especially strange this time around though as I'm using a new style of controller and new button lay out. After a couple of missions I decided to go online. For the first time I can ever recollect I managed to connect to a server first time with no hiccups. A record for a newly released game. I know it had been out for a couple of weeks in the US, but the whole of Europe got it on Friday. Later in the afternoon when everyone got home from work/school to play with their new toy, PSN went a bit mental. But, to Sony's credit, a few hours later all was well again.
I was utterly shocked when I first went into multiplayer. It looked SO good. But it also looked a bit weird. I think it was a bit of a shock to the system to have beautifully rendered graphics from a console. It almost looked cartoony. But after a while my eyes adjusted and I got used to the glory of 60FPS.
The gunplay is awesome. Although it takes a while to figure out the quirks of the starter weapons. The recoil on some is fairly high. I recommend going into the Test Range and trying them all out. That plus the new controller layout meant for a few frustrating games. But eventually I had a good few rounds.
I've mainly been playing Conquest or Domination. Conquest is as good as always, even better with the large 64 player maps. Domination is just a bit too CoD for my liking, but fun all the same. The maps are awesome. I've played Shanghai, Dawnbreaker, Golmud Railway, Hinan Resort, Lancing Dam, Paracel Storm and Operation Locker so far. Out of all of them, I really like Hainan Resort and Golmud Railway. It will take a while to get used to all the maps, the good locations, the radius for capturing the flag etc. But they have a lot of promise.
I've been playing a lot of commander too. But it's the same old story. Very few people actually accept the orders you give or actually pay any attention. The few who do though I try to look after by promoting them, giving them supply drops and UAV support when they're taking the objective. A perfect example of a team not listening is in the picture below. They rushed out, took all the flags with a fight then they left to two back flags unguarded, crammed together near the enemy base and then got back raged. I tried to warn them, giving them defend objectives but no one listened. And within two minutes one squad had captured both flags.
There are a few little bugs, it's only crashed once on me though so cannot complain too much. They balancing of some weapons leaves a lot to be desired. For instance, there is a 25 second cooldown for the flares on an attack chopper. But the stinger has a reload time of about 5 seconds. I think the implication is obvious
The biggest "problem" is the client side hit detection. Nearly every time I get killed and think "wtf", it's by an American player. From my POV, I manage to get 4-5 shots off with hit markers but get nearly instakilled by them. The pattern being is that they all have 75% health left on killcam. That would indicate they only registered one hit. Which therefore means they have an unfair advantage. I really wish DICE/EA would provide some region locked servers. It's one thing knowing you were beaten fairly and squarely and another when it's down to ping.
Due to one mate getting shafted on his pre-order, one mate moving house and another mate who got the blue light of death, I've only been playing alone so cannot really give a proper verdict yet. It's a fun game but much more fun when you can play with people you know and talk to. I'll come back when I've had a few squad games and let you know what I think
