nobody really does anything.
I recently purchased Battlefield: Bad Company 2 at the behest of professional gamer Justin “Fitzsimmons” Fitzsimmons claiming it was a serious game for professionals and that CoD: Modern Warfare 2 was a toy game for nubs and bros. Steam was offering BF:BC2 for $30 which is right about the most I’ll pay for the majority of games I’ll play, excluding soccer games of which I will pay top dollar (and play for 500+ hours a season). This is my take of the first few hours of playing.
I initially tried out the single player mode, which I was surprised was even included as my flirtations with the Battlefield series which began many years ago in college seemed to deem it as only a “pub” game suitable for 32+ players. The single player mode had story, cinematic introduction, high production value, etc. It also immediately dogged my 3 year old now antiquated computer, so I switched to the lowest graphic settings in order to keep it playable. I was entertained while playing this mode, but since multiplayer gaming is what I’m after in a game like this, I wanted to try out this mode. Here’s where the fun begins.
To play online, you must have an EA account that is active and signs you in. Ok, I have one already from my FIFA days, so no worries - I recalled the email address I used and the correct password. At this point, I expect to have to enter the serial number as told to me by Steam - this never comes up. Well, alright, let’s try to play online.
From the multiplayer drop down, there is a “Play Now” option, which brings up a simple “gametype/map” chooser. I assume this will pick any game with people in it, so I just select “play”. No dice: “No games found”. Ok, this is strange. I literally did not filter anything with my options, and this gmae is recently AND popular, so why are there no games? My feeble brain concludes it is because I did not enter my game key yet.
On the multiplayer menu, there is an option called “Redeem Code”. I bring this up and type my Steam provided game key into it. After some thinking, it tells me it has already been used or is invalid (you can’t tell me?). I try a few more times, give up assuming the auth server is down or something, and try again the next day. No luck. Now I’m getting upset - play now still can’t find a game, I never entered my game key, and now it’s telling me it’s invalid or used already? Great. I contact Steam support after reading the FAQ about game keys (and reverifying local cache etc). They get back to me about how they don’t support the game as it’s EA, and I’ll have to contact them. This is going to go well.
After dealing with EA’s shitty website to try and find more info about it, something finally states that the “Redeem Code” option is NOT where you enter your game key, it is for downloadable content or whatever. Gee, thanks, UI, ever think that someone might get that confused? How bout a little sentence on the popup for that portion saying what a “Code” is?
So, that’s not what I need to do. But I still can’t connect to a game. And bringing up the “Server” tab on the bottom right hand corner of the main menu doesn’t help - it lists nothing. I can vaguely make out from the near invisible tabs that it only shows your history and favorites. I try another “Server” item from the multiplayer menu to find a completely DIFFERENT server browser, albeit not populated. Pressing refresh or search or whatever on this finally lists some servers, and I manage to join a multiplayer game for the first time, a week and a half after buying the damn thing.
I only played briefly so my thoughts on the multiplayer game are this:
- Maps are goddamn big. I mean seriously. You better hope there are vehicles, or you’re doing a lot of goddamn running to find people only to be shot quickly and repeat the whole process.
- My computer can barely handle the game on low settings. Too much swirly dust and stuff. Makes it slow down when trying to aim/fire.
- Guns have a lot of recoil, will take getting used to.
I also own CoD: MW2 that I bought after a Steam free weekend in which I got hooked on the achievement/reward system. I play it occasionally but only as a pub game, the same way I view Counter-Strike. Something to waste time with, but not play “seriously” like Enemy Territory. So far: my experience with MW2 has been MUCH better than BF. YW.
