[Multiplatform] Battlefield 1943, a.k.a. Maybe it actually works now, awesome.

99% of the people I've encountered in Burnout online these days are interested in actually doing challenges, actually doing events or something else. It's not been difficult to get a good group of people together at all, and I'd be happy to host a session of races with you and other GFFers online sometimes.

Anyways, that's for another thread. I know you get dumb people in all sorts of games, I'm not arguing that point, but it's the number of idiots I encountered in BF1943 PLUS the various gameplay issues on the game's side that make it frustrating. When there's no perceivable lag why the hell should a clip of bullets to the back of someone's head, that the game tells me are hitting, not work? And then one shot at distance on the same dude later results in a kill?

But yes, the number of idiots I've run into is crazy. So many games I'd find it was just me and Devo (and bear in mind this was before all you guys decided to buy the game, so it was literally me and Devo, sometimes Ultima if the game would let him join us) would be the only people doing anything on our team. And with just two people it's hard work, and depressing when the second we'd stop defend a flag and go to take another the one we'd just left would start flashing as it was being claimed by the enemies. I did bloody well in BF1943, and at times it was a lot of fun, but the fun/frustration ratio was too heavily tilted in the annoyance camp for me to continue wasting time with it.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Played more of this last night and I'm enjoying it more and more. It's slightly annoying that people hang around waiting for planes and leave the carrier in boats on their own but that also works in your favour. On Iwo Jima especially, rather than rushing straight for the shore, you're better off getting two gunners and driving a boat around the far side of the island. You can then pick off people in boats on their own very easily, kill any idiots waiting for a plane on the deck or using the flak guns then capture the nearest objective on the shore (The beach on the Jap side, can't remember the name on the other side) from behind the enemy. Leave a couple of people there to guard it (And if they're snipers keep picking off people on the carrier) then roll up all the bases from behind. You can then rely on people being idiots and coming ashore alone and keep picking them off as they come. I ended up in a squad with a couple of random guys for a couple of matches last night and we wreaked havoc like that with just the three of us. People's almost obsessive need to get loads of kills rather than ever defending bases means you can predict what they're going to do a lot of the time and attacking a base from behind is successful 90% of the time.

I also spent a while on the horseshoe shaped island, camping out with a sniper rifle halfway down the cliff in the middle of the island. You can see four of the bases from there and can't be seen from the nearest road. You can pick people off from range and when you see a tank coming, sneak back up the hill, wait for it to pass and then fuck it up with dynamite.

The more I play this, the more I'm enjoying the number of fucking idiots who play it. It's like none of them have ever played an objective based shooter like Battlefield before and just makes it far too easy and fun for those of us who have.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Shin

It's slightly annoying that people hang around waiting for planes

From what I've played it hasn't been as bad as it was before Coral Sea unlocked. Now, I've actually seen planes available with no one rushing towards them as if their life depends on it. Granted, there are still idiots who have no business flying planes getting into them (I know I can't fly a plane for shit, so I just stick to the ground where I can actually help my team), but it's nowhere near as bad as it was when the game first came out.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I guess as well people have realised that the planes aren't nearly as lethal as planes and helicopters can be in Battlefield 2 or Frontlines. With a decent pilot and co-pilot in a helicopter you could singlehandedly win a match of either of those. It's incredibly easy to shoot down planes in 1943 and their bombs aren't even that great.

FELIPE NO

I dunno.

I can win battles in a plane against an AA gun, and using it anyone can destroy mobile armour extremely well. One (or two) decent pilots can halt most heavy attacks the enemy can mount, including the bombers. I'm not saying I'm great, but if you're anything above the level of "mentally handicapped" and have a little bit of practice, the things become pretty damn strong.

I guess the level of power is offset by how idiotic they knew the player base was.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

You need enough people to populate the map to make it fun though. With too few people it'd just come down to who could run around capturing bases quickest that won, essentially the best jeep driver. I agree that losing a squad member to the other team can be frustrating but it's also kinda fun being able to kill them and then gloat about it down the mic.

As for planes vs AA guns, I've probably had more assists from hitting the plane once before the pilot stacks it into a hillside trying to get under my line of fire than I have had straight kills. I'm not saying they can't be powerful, I'm saying you need a modicum of skill to make them deadly whereas in previous games of this genre an average player can dominate a match just by launching massive barrages of rockets from a helicopter and keeping moving so the appeal of easy points is rather diminished.

Also, as with pretty much every game of this genre, there is still nothing much funnier than planting explosives on a parked plane and waiting for someone to try and fly off in it. Battlefield 2 on Xbox especially you could get monstrous amounts of points by sneaking into the main enemy base as a sniper and loading up the helicopter with C4, then getting to a safe distance and focussing your sights on the cockpit. Anytime someone climbed in you just pressed the trigger for an easy headshot and if they happened to get off the ground (If you were reloading or something), you just blew the C4. It's amazing how many people don't learn and just keep piling into the same chopper over and over getting killed the same way every time. BF2 even had the camera point at who killed you when you died and most people still wouldn't come to try and kill you.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Having a fucking blast with this game. Starting to get the hang of sniping. I'm still goddamn terrible with the tanks, but other than that I'm consisently placing in the top few slots. Shin's right, the sheer hugeness of the player base means you're playing with a large majority of people who are fucking terrible, which is awesome for us. Most games each team has 3-5 players that are responsible for 90% of the work of their teams.

Haven't hit any freezes or lag issues at all since I picked it up last Tuesday. That day we had squad split-up issues 3 times, but not once since then.

Originally Posted by YOU MAD

I think we can all agree this game would be fucking worth playing if you could start a private game with all your pals regardless of the amount of you. Join whichever side you want to fight on, and open it up for strangers if you need/want more folks in.

Until this and "my squad" is made consistent, BF 1943 can suck my huge e-dick.

I agree you should be able to start a game with more than 4 people (you can only go in as a single squad, right?), but I don't seem them ever making full-on private games. Unless you actually had 2 full teams I don't see the maps really working, it's already borderline too few people as is with 24 players. The game seems to be geared much more towards pick up and play style. Weird that you're still having Squad split-up issues. I haven't had it happen since last Tuesday, and it doesn't seem to be happening at all with the other people I play with either. So I don't know if we're just lucky, you're unlucky, or if they actually did specifically address that.

Personally my on real gripe (and I'm new to Battlefield so maybe this is old news) but spawning is super fucked up. If you spawn in at a base that the other team is currently trying to capture, it's a hilarious chain of either you spawning right behind them, or right in front of them. It's hilarious and awesome when you're spawn killing people as you're taking a base, but it sucks when you're trying to spawn at your base and you get knifed in the back instantly.

Also it's completely bullshit if you own the base that has the Air Raid a single dude from the other team can run in and set it off; only the team who owns the base should be able to call it

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by SailorDaravon

Also it's completely bullshit if you own the base that has the Air Raid a single dude from the other team can run in and set it off; only the team who owns the base should be able to call it

No, that would be bullshit. SOmetimes if you're the only person trying to cap a point on your team, sneaking in and wiping out the defenders in one go works pretty well.

You know what should be implemented though? A limit on how many times you can use the bombers in a round. Per player I mean. If you were the last one in there, you should not be allowed to be the next one in. It would, hopefully, cause less camping of that fucking shit, it's so aggrivating.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

There's also the fact that DICE have previously put out Battlefield games capable of being played by less players that the entire map requires. I'm not sure about BF1942, but in BF2 nearly all maps could be played in various player number configurations, with the out-of-limits zone being changed (the whole "You are leaving the play area, return in XX seconds" stuff) and the number/location of bases shifting to better suit smaller numbers. Why not offer that sort of option as it'd be piss easy to do. Or hell, why not just let the players choose if they want to start a server with just two people? You can eliminate all stats gathering from private games, so people couldn't achievement whore or stats boost, simple.

I agree with you Shin, the game maps as is would be terrible with a handful of players, the odd time I ended up in a game that was only 6-8 people a side it felt pretty empty, but why not allow people to make that choice themselves?

P.S. I stuck up my review on Prime Gamer, so you can all go and post there about how you disagree with me - Prime Gamer Review: Battlefield 1943

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I actually had a really long post regarding your review where I agreed and disagreed on several points, but I decided it went on too long and I like you too much to post some of my comments on some of your opinions. In general I think a lot of the gameplay and other things they've done were done specifically to cater to a casual arcade pick up and play experience, for better or worse.

I honestly do feel I have to call out one thing specifically thought that really bothered me on your whole review; I find it sort of hilarious and odd that you slam it repeatedly for lag and connection issues when you haven't played the game in the last 10 days of the 18 since release. I don't doubt you had a bad run with the game, but I play the game mostly with people from Europe and specifically asked them about this today, and none of them have had the slightest issues with lag or connecting whatsoever since a few days after the game came out. And this is while I was in a game with them and there's a guy from Japan, 2 people in the UK, 1 person in Ireland, 1 person from the Netherlands, and another from somewhere else in Europe I don't know about. And I honestly just spent time looking at multiple message boards, and except for one or two people who seem to be having issues with connecting to EA Online (which is the problem I was having day 1), just no one seems to be having these issues at all the last week or two. I mean, maybe it's possible you could log on today and still somehow have the same problems, but it strikes me as odd you put out a review complaining heavily about online issues at launch with an online-only game, but haven't played it anytime recently. Unless you have another account or something?

I was speaking idiomatically.

I think you'll find - and feel free to point out any instances where this is not true - that I refer to all times of having connect issues in the past tense and point out that these are problems I experienced when playing the game during its first week and some. I acknowledge that things are now seemingly better (I say seemingly, because all I can go on are people's reports such as yours).

I'm reviewing a game based on my experiences with it, which largely consisted of issues trying to actually connect. Yes, I haven't played recently, but that's because the early experience annoyed me sufficiently to put me off playing (and not entirely to do with connection issues, but those were a big part of that).

I'm not quite sure what you expect me to do when reviewing the game, ignore all the shitty experiences I had? I'm pretty sure I point out that it's a good game underneath the crappy stuff I ran into. Plus I really don't go on about connection stuff too much (there's a block at the top, and it's referenced in the summary). Fair play if you disagree with me and I'm really pleased for you if you're having a good time with the game, but my experience with it was much different and the review reflects that.

Daravon, if you're game, I'd be interested to put up a counter-point review on the site if you'd be willing to write one (I don't mean just sit there slagging me off and saying I'm wrong, but present your own point of view as you clearly have a different experience with the game).

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Colonel Dicknigger

No, that would be bullshit. SOmetimes if you're the only person trying to cap a point on your team, sneaking in and wiping out the defenders in one go works pretty well.

You know what should be implemented though? A limit on how many times you can use the bombers in a round. Per player I mean. If you were the last one in there, you should not be allowed to be the next one in. It would, hopefully, cause less camping of that fucking shit, it's so aggrivating.

In Battlefield 2, on the maps with airstrikes you had to crouch in front of it, out in the open while you aimed it, meaning a semi-decent sniper could cover the thing and kill anyone trying to use it. That meant to use the air strike effectively, you had to sweep the area for snipers first and have a couple of people covering you while you used it, so in a game with semi-competent players it tied up three or more people to drop an airstrike and the console was generally miles away from any bases so they were out of action for a while getting there and back, often resulting in a lost base.

So essentially, the bombing raid bunker needs to have an open door so you can shoot the guy using it. If you're in a plane when someone on the other team launches an air strike though that's about the easiest 30 points you're likely to get in the game just for shooting down the bombers.

Like SD, I've not had any connection or lag issues at all since starting to play this last week so I guess it's fixed. In fact the only single moment of annoyance I've had with this was yesterday when I threw some C4 at a tank and it fell straight through it and didn't go off (And the tank driver noticed me behind him with predictable results). The moral of the story is the one I would have thought everyone had learned after Castle Crashers, buying an online only XBLA game in the week of release is a really dumb thing to do.

FELIPE NO

Only buying Crashers a week later would have solved nothing.

From the sounds of things, whatever they did that other weekend during that three hours of downtime really must have fixed a lot. People who have started playing since then certainly seem to be having far better of a time of it than the people who started (and got fed up) playing before hand. You can't really blame either party for thinking the way it does considering all they've experienced is one or the other.

Anywho, I'd be very, very down for open door bomber bunkers, that would solve a few issues with their relative power. Now a solution for the camping of them and I'll be ever so happy.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Colonel Dicknigger

Only buying Crashers a week later would have solved nothing.

And, indeed, buying months after release still wouldn't have helped. You'd have had to waited, what was it 8 months or so before any issues to do with connections got fixed. So not really the same. Plus Behemoth is a 2 man team, EA/DICE is a pool of hundreds of experienced devs who should know better. Let's not start comparing apples and solar systems now.

As Skills said, it's clear that they've actually fixed a lot on the connection side of things and that's great. If you're having an excellent time with the game then brill, I really am pleased for you. However, for all the fun bits I encountered there was a lot of annoy stuff. Originally that was connection issues, but once those started to subside it was more the weird quirks that occurred far more often than I was willing to put up with.

For example, Shin, you mentioned putting C4 on a tank and it dropping right through. I had at least 2 times where I shot a tank at very close range with a rocket only to see the rocket fly straight through the tank. I had a couple of times where I threw C4 down and the C4 either fell through the map or didn't actually materialise properly. I've unloaded whole clips into people (with the hit indicator telling me I was hitting) to no effect. I've had people firing at me from about 2 foot away and no triangle appear over them or on the map (that one was happening a lot actually). I've been killed as I was exiting a bombing run shelter before I had any sort of control over my character. I've accidentally set of C4 when I was too close and killed myself, but not the enemy stood between me and the C4. Etc, etc, etc.

It is a good game. The Battlefield series has always been strong and well designed. It's just not a very well put together game.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I think you're both kind of deliberately missing my point there. I was implying that one should wait a bit until other people have played a new game, reported the bugs and they've been fixed before buying it. Luckily for most of us here, we have you two to do that for us and as long as Skills keeps picking up those refunds it's not costing anyone anything anyway.

The best way to stop bombing run camping is to plot up somewhere suitably out of sight with a sniper rifle I find. Doesn't help much when the campers are on your team though. I'd have thought that C4 on or near the door wouldn't hurt either. If it doesn't kill the person inside, you can just wait for the bombs to be released and hit the trigger as only a real fuckwit would stay in the bunker after that point.

I think the thing to remember is that this is an XBLA game and cost a tenner, not a full £35 game so the odd glitch or lack of polish is perhaps fair enough. You could say that it's so cheap because there's only three maps but anyone who played BF2 online will tell you you only ever got to play three maps anyway. I think I've had £10 of enjoyment out of it already to be honest and I'll be playing it on and off until either Frontlines 2 comes out or BF:BC2 comes out and isn't a bit rubbish.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Shin

I think you're both kind of deliberately missing my point there.

Maybe.

The thing is Shin, you can argue that it's only £10 so some issues are forgivable, and maybe it's more forgivable, but it's still £10 I've paid for a game from a highly experienced developer who I expect better of. And my point is that the number of little bugs and issues was enough to make me question why I was bothering with it when there are games as good or better and free (or largely so) of any such bugs sat in my game pile. About the only reason I'd be down for playing it now is because a bunch of you lot were on and games with mates are nearly always fun, but then I'd still rather fire up Halo 3, Left 4 Dead, Rock Band, Burnout Paradise, Gears 2, Ace Combat, CoD4, GRID, etc, etc, instead.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Fair enough mate. I'm quite into it mainly because I love games like these, nobody plays Frontlines online anymore and Bad Company was a real dissapointment so it's been a while since I've had some decent objective based squad FPS action.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Oh yeah, I love these kind of games too, hence my annoyance in disappointment. I put a shit ton of time into BF2 and was looking forward to a similar kind of thing. Sadly I think the lack of depth also hurts the experience over time too, as I did start to miss some of the variation of playing as the rather different classes and opportunities BF2 had. If Frontlines is so good maybe I should check it out, though do you mean the online games are almost dead?

I was speaking idiomatically.

Well there are still people playing it but whereas once you had a choice of several busy game rooms, there's generally just one 50 player game going on and a few smaller ones. Not necessarily a bad thing as the only people playing it now are those who play it properly and you can pick it up for about £7 second hand. I know a lot of people didn't like it though, mainly because the sniper rifle needs a lot of leading to hit properly, the game fogs out to hide redraw distance deficiencies and with 50 people in a room it occasionally lags a bit. £7 is worth it for the single player campaign though in my opinion which is the best of any game like this I've certainly ever played.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

For the first time since I bought it, I experienced a flawless play session. Could be because BIG APPLE 5 AM, or because it was GELB KICK SOME ASS FORCE, but I dunno. Worked super. Has me enthusiastic, too.

New personal record, too. 21 kills, 0 deaths, in the same damn aircraft the ENTIRE MATCH. People are terrible at this vidya.

Also, "I'll be right there" has a new space in the dictionary of awesome.

FELIPE NO

Played this last night with Tails, Daravon, Devo, Mo0...

...But I was so goddamned drunk I barely remember anything.

Most amazing jew boots

You were going on about some crazy shit that made no sense and that X14 kept killing you.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Colonel Skills

Also, "I'll be right there" has a new space in the dictionary of awesome.

Story, please. Need to determine if it unseats "Uh oh."

There's nowhere I can't reach.

We're on (I think it was) Iwo-Jima, and after about a forever timespan of fucking around with airplanes, I decided to take to land because our team sucks and doesn't have any capture points. Skills is all "Where are you at?" but he sees me on the radar and is all "I'll be right there."

As I'm heading up the hill to the Signal Station the first thing I see as I hit the peak is a plane nose dive into the ground where the flag is full speed with Skills bailing out at the last second right before the explosion. It was fucking hilarious. He lived, too!

But like Skills said, we had a blast because we spent the majority of our matches last night both in planes, GELBing it up because everyone else sucks too much to shoot us down.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by SailorDaravon

You were going on about some crazy shit that made no sense and that X14 kept killing you.

I was singing the theme from St Elmo's Fire for some reason.

And theres a TON of cheap sniping. I think X14 was camping on a hill by one of the flags and kept taking me out.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?