So I went online last night to play 20 minutes of Bad Company 2 as Mike had said he’d be on. We dived into a game of Onslaught because you can be sure that the game will last 15 minutes or so.
22 minutes later we finished Atacama Desert on hard difficulty. My best time there is 14 minutes so it was a really sucky game. Mike expressed his boredom with the DLC and as a competitive game mode I have to agree. I don’t mind, and enjoy playing it with random players but when I join any friends online it’s to be competitive and go for the win, in a meaningful manner. A better completion time is an incentive, but only a small one. With a little more imagination, DICE could have made the mode a lot more exciting and competitive. We’re all stats freaks aren’t we?
One part of the problem is that each game is much the same as the previous game on the same level. For example on Atacama Desert there are always 2 enemy tanks at the start, then 1 tank rolls up from the left, and a heli attacks. On Isla there’s always a sniper on the building next to the B flag. On Nelson Bay there’s always a medic and assault guy upstairs where Alpha 2 is. It’s predictable where Rush or any game played against humans can’t be.
It speaks volumes when swordsmanx75’s review of Onslaught suggests self imposed rules (only use shotguns) to make the game more interesting. Check out his review here:
Onslaught is fun, it’s lots of fun actually, but rush beats it hands down.
Edit: David has his own review of Onslaught. He pulls no punches:
I gave it a go with Donncha and Mike on hard and to be honest, I was not impressed. As a game mode it’s Squad Rush meets Conquest with AI. And as always the AI is stupid. I’m not expecting total consciousness from AI, but I’d be impressed if the level of intelligence had moved on from that of the original Tom Clancy Ghost Recon games from the beginning of the decade.
I was playing some MW2 a few nights ago with the OAPS – http://oaps.org – and there was a wide range of equipment/perks as you’d expect. So games were played with self-imposed rules – shotguns on Rust, knives only – that sort of thing. Changes the game in surprising ways and certainly for me meant a change in tactics everywhere.
In other news I got the Perfection title (sniper, complete mag without missing) fall camo on Tar, will get fall camo on Scar later and should totally max the Scar later with 2500 kills. It’s the fact I can play on 10 minute bursts which eats my time.
I’ll have to take a look at that site. Looks interesting! I could live with self-imposed rules like that if it was organised properly..
Oh, Onslaught games are usually over fairly quickly. The quicker the better as that’s the only competitive stat the Onslaught leaderboard is ranked on. Nelson Bay can be done in around 10 minutes. Atacama Desert is probably one of the longer ones because of all the vehicles.
I actually pulled a load of punches, I deleted quite a bit about Onslaught on that post. Although it was all true, it was just basically moaning so I took it out. I even considered making a completely new post dedicated to slating it, but opted not to waste any more of my time on it. There’s enough moaning and negativity out there without all my posts adding to the mire.
As for self imposed rules on Onslaught, this guy does Nelson Bay knife only (but I think it’s on easy as he should be dead a load of times – still good to watch though, and it shows up just how bad and unaware the AI is).
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_v8Rmo3Tz4&hl=en_GB&fs=1&rel=0]
Oh, and Repair Tool only:
They are very unaware, that’s true. They just sit there until you start shooting!
Your review is the first very negative review I have seen. Other reviews, (mostly on Youtube) are mixed, but all liked the mode and thought it was fun with a warning that it might get boring as it’s so limited.
I just hope it’s not another nail in the coffin for BC2. It dropped to 9th place in numbers played on Xbox Live last week, so hopefully the lag fixes for North America will help get more people online again!
The thing is, I didn’t go in to the game mode with any preconceptions. But after I played Atacama Desert twice in a row – once with three randoms and then again with you and Mike I realised just how limited the enemy were. It’d be something if they ran for cover while hip firing when fired upon, but they just stand in the middle of the street like….. dumb AI!
Stupid AI.