First impressions of Demo for 360

[insinuwait]

Well the demo for Bad Company has finally hit Xbox Live...and I must admit I have been waiting for this demo for some time.

The demo includes a piece of the single player campaign and the ability to play online with up to 24 people in a single game. A perk of this demo you really don't see in other demos is the ability to rank up in online play like you would in the full game.

Alright, on with the critique.

I'm quite disappointed with this demo, it just feels really weird. The controls are pretty awkward and don't react the way it feels it should. Also a really annoying thing is in this demo is you can not change the layout of the controls on the controller except for the 2 preset control the game has progammed in for you.

For example, the default controls for driving a vehicle is to use the left trigger to accelerate and use the left bumper to drive in reverse, and this is completely backwards from almost every other game for the 360. You can also use the 2nd default for driving which is to use the left stick for both accelerating AND turning, which works like shit.

The single player campaign is a total clusterfuck. You run into a town, people are shooting at you from all directions and you have no clue where the fire is coming from until your AA partners point them out. The AA of your teammates is about as close as Yahtzee from No Punctuation described as "Pants on head retarded" from the Halo 3 review of its AA. Its rare if they shoot at someone, but they will gladly point out where the enemies are at to show up on your screen as red blips so YOU can shoot them.

The graphics look less than next-generation gaming, compared to Call of Duty 4, this looks like crap.

The new addition to this game is of course the destructible environments. DICE was not kidding around when they focused on this element so much in all of their interviews and demo movies before this demo came out on Xbox Live. You can blow a hole in EVERYTHING with the right explosives or tank shots.

Remember all those times running a tank into a tree and getting stuck in BF2? No longer a problem, just roll right over em as they crack in half. Or let your gunner on top of your Humvee use his machine gun to mow down the trees as you run the vehicle towards them. Awesome.

One thing I found a bit odd was a single shot from the sniper kit online cracked a huge ass palm tree in half like a toothpick.

The multiplayer feels like BF2 for the most part. You still have a few kits to choose from that are identical to the BF2 kits...Sniper, Assault, Demolitions, Support and one other one.

There are a few things missing that really piss me off, the number one thing is the inability to go prone. You can only stand or crouch. Picture this: you're a sniper whose just found a nice little hill to sit up on to pick off enemies, but wait, you can only crouch, so after your first shot you stand out like a sore thumb, and you also make a nice target area for the enemies to kill. Another thing is the muzzle flash on a few of the guns are so bad you can't see what you're putting a clip into, you just see a huge ball of light coming out of your gun.

More to come later.

[kook]

Thats great stuff insinuwait, posting to the front page!

[Caslon]

What might be added to your impressions is where PC gaming is going.

I don't console.

There's a lot of talk now if PC gaming might be at it's end.