This guide was originally posted here on our sister site InfoAddict.
I write this guide not for your benefit but my own. You see, I am tired of playing with teammates who treat a round of Bad Company 2 (BC2) like it’s Halo or Modern Warfare 2. An overwhelming amount of players just don’t seem to grasp the fundamentals; how to score, how to win, how not to suck, how not to play like a lone wolf who doesn’t contribute anything except a few useless sniper-rifle kills.
Not to brag, but I consistently rule at Battlefield games and have since the genre originally debuted back on the PC with Battlefield 1942. I play like a man on a mission with clear goals and objectives, a style that usually finds my score high enough to lead the team. It’s not because I wield l33t weapon skills, it’s because I play the game as it is intended. Hopefully, by the end of this guide, you’ll be playing in a similar style and I won’t have to curse my team for being top-heavy with noobs.
1. Objective Based, Not Kill-Based
Contrary to how a lot of people play Battlefield, killing members of the other team is NOT your objective. Killing other players is a fringe-benefit of completing objectives.
Your overall objective is to destroy targets dotted across the map, usually two crates in each zone. These crates represent your holy crusade. If you’re on the attacking team, every thing you do as a player should be geared towards taking down a crate. Any activity not related to taking down a crate is a waste of time. If you’re on defense, saving those crates is your prime directive.
Why This is Effective: The entire game is based around destroying or saving crates. Destroy all the crates as the attacking team and you win. Prevent the attacking team from destroying your crates and you win. It’s as simple as that. Winning has nothing to do with how many players you kill, unless you are on defense, where every kill will slowly bring you towards victory, but not at the expense of losing crates.
2. Hey Rambo, Join a Squad!
I was hoping that DICE, the designers of BC2, would make joining a squad mandatory in their latest version of the game, but my hopes and dreams didn’t pan out. It’s too bad, as compulsory squad enlistment would go a long way in forcing players to play properly. As it stands, you have the option to either join a squad or go it alone when loading up a new map.
There is zero reason not to join a squad, nor is there a single benefit to playing solo.
Why This is Effective: Joining a squad allows you to spawn with any living squad-mate currently playing on the map. If you have squadie who has already penetrated enemy lines then you can select him and spawn right next to his location, giving him a much-needed hand. This saves you a ton of time by not forcing you to run or drive from the initial base all the way to the objective. With a full squad of four guys, you’ll usually have three good spawning options, allowing you to appear closer to the action. This ensures you keep the pressure on the opposing team. If you elect to not join a squad, then you will always spawn at a base, costing you valuable time.
Additionally, joining a squad opens up a ton of extra scoring modifiers that will greatly increase your point total.
3. Proper Spawning
A lot of people just button-mash the spawn button until they return to action, giving little thought about where they are appearing or why. If you’re in a squad then you have a lot of options. You can either spawn with a teammate or at your base, depending upon your current needs.
When you die and the time to spawn arrives, analyze the map and see what assets you have available in the form of vehicles or aircraft. If there is an unused tank at your main base then you should spawn there and use the asset. If the base is empty of assets, then spawn with a member of your squad.
Why This is Effective: One sure way for a team to lose a round of BC2 is by not using all available assets. If your team is not using available tanks, helicopters or UAV, then your team is going to lose. Nothing is more depressing than watching your entire team just go running by all the heavy equipment as they make their long journey towards an enemy position.
If you have a squad-mate in a tank or copter then you can spawn within his vehicle, assuming a position is free. You’ll wrack up extra points working as a unit, plus you’ll be using available assets at their maximum efficiency.
It’s that time of year again. Love is in the air, suicide rates are spiking, and businesses everywhere are lying and trying to take advantage of you. Some companies are spending millions in television advertising to convince you that buying pajamas on the internet will get you laid. Or perhaps the woman you desire will finally surrender to you once she sees that you’ve bought her a teddy bear that cost more than the Prestige Edition of Modern Warfare 2? What about diamonds, or the boxes of chocolates where you only end up getting one or two bites of the one you really like? Maybe a really expensive, super-special arrangement of flowers from that guy with the commercials who gives off the distinct impression he might be considering marriage someday in the state where they make the pricey teddy bears? That’s not likely to do it either.
The brutal truth is that the only people guaranteed to be stimulated this evening are the flower shop owners and Hallmark store managers. Plus, in the opinion of this aging writer, if you’re having to pay for it you’re with the type of chick you might as well try and get the money back from once she’s refilled your health meter. Instead you need to keep your Modern Warfare 2 NVGs turned on and eyes peeled for the type of girl that cares more about a players Mana then his gold. A woman who’ll start an Army of Two with you and always give her all playing Co-op even when you’re wounded and it looks like you won’t have ammo enough to make it to the next save checkpoint.
The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments. - Friedrich Nietzsche
He who strikes the first blow admits he’s lost the argument.
- Chinese Proverb
The reason I talk to myself is that I’m the only one whose answers I accept.
- George Carlin
It is one thing to try to convince me of something that is tenuous at best. But it is something else entirely to tell me that my own eyes and ears are lying to me.
So I find it a little distressing to have gaming portal 1up.com tell me that my own senses cannot be trusted. Perhaps they assume my eyesight and hearing are so poor that I am physically incapable of watching, let alone understanding, footage of two men talking clearly and coherently into microphones while being recorded on video.
Ben Jones, designer at Zipper Interactive currently working on MAG, must not be receiving enough hate mail in his Inbox. This situation will be changing rapidly, as Mr. Jones claims that compared to Playstation Network players, Xbox Live players are immature.
“I actually consider Xbox Live the more immature of the two,” Jones said. “As we saw in the beta we’ve got an audience that’s willing to communicate and willing to organize and structure, and help other people how to play the game. That’s the most remarkable thing that I saw in the beta – random people helping other players along two try and familiarize themselves with this really cool experience.”
There are a lot of problems with Ben Jones’ statement. Let’s take a look:
First of all, MAG isn’t coming to the Xbox 360 so he has no idea if players would organize and help others. If he is basing his judgment off a few rounds of Modern Warfare 2, perhaps he has a point, but having played Modern Warfare 2 on both consoles, I can say there is no difference in maturity.
Secondly, a small percentage of players on the PS3 actually have headsets because the PS3 does not ship with one. As such, far fewer players communicate on the PS3 than the Xbox 360.
As an owner of both consoles, I have seen little difference in the maturity levels of players. Plenty of idiots to go around for everyone.
Ben Jones should be more concerned about his game, as having spent the past week with the beta has left me bored and bemused about its imminent failure. MAG has no future and no selling point beyond its 256 player count. Everything else is lackluster, derivative and clunky…like every other game Zipper has made.
Back when Modern Warfare 2 was released for the PC, all hell broke loose because Infinity Ward had abandoned a long-standing tradition of dedicated server support for PC-based games. In short, PC games of old allowed anyone to setup and host a multiplayer server, a great convenience that allowed for custom maps and mods.
Infinity Ward suffered a PR nightmare from which they refused to budge. In turn, sales of Modern Warfare 2 were not in line with expectations. Seeing an opening, DICE, developers of Battlefield and the forthcoming Bad Company 2, issued forth press-releases in the hopes of taking advantage of the ill-will.
An example:
A lot of buzz has been floating around the internet lately about dedicated servers and we wanted to make sure our all our players have the best understanding of how Battlefield will be played on the PC. Since Battlefield 1942 DICE has used dedicated servers for all platforms. This formula has worked well, and still works well, for us and for the gaming community. We have stayed true to this practice and will continue this tradition into the upcoming title Battlefield Bad Company 2.
Perhaps you’ve heard by now of the GameTrailers TV episode in which host Geoff Keighley asked Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime whether New Super Mario Bros. Wii would outsell Modern Warfare 2. Fils-Aime responded by stating “On one particular platform – I do believe so,” and further added that he would be including NPD sales data up through January 2010.
However, if you read about the now-infamous bet over at 1up.com, you’d have gotten an entirely different story – one in which NOA’s president is depicted as himself issuing the sales challenge and specifically against the Xbox 360 version of Modern Warfare 2, not simply a single, unspecified platform.
On Friday the website posted an article entitled “NPD Fallout: Mario vs Modern Warfare.” In the article, 1up opens by stating, “Far be it from us to stoke the flames of the console wars, but when a major industry figure throws down the gauntlet and issues a sales challenge, we can’t help but check on the data.”
Only, the major industry figure (Fils-Aime) never issued the challenge – he merely accepted it. read more…