Once More, With Clarity

Boy, was I tired when I wrote that last post!

So here are some more thoughts on what I experienced last night (and early this morning) on my first foray into Resistance 2 Beta-land.

I spent a lot of time on the 60-person map (which I forget the name of), in a Team Deathmatch (red vs blue). They were always 1000-point rounds, meaning that whichever team got 1000 kills against the other team first, won. We had one round where the final score was 1000-999... I kid you not! Another one was 1000-985, so that gives you some idea of just how close the games can be, despite having 30 players on each side and a high score to achieve. With 60 people all on one map, things can get a little insane if the various squads (each 30-person team is made up of 6 5-person squads) happen to converge on one spot. If that happens, it's mass carnage, and I found that I needed to simply spawn, throw my grenade in the other team's direction, start firing my weapon at them, and see if I could get a kill or two in before dying. Most of the time, though, it's not like that, and you get to move across the map at your own pace, looking for victims (and vice versa).

Though this may turn out to be configurable, the Sprint function now seems to require you to hold a button down, rather than toggling into Sprint mode. I found that quite disconcerting, because I kept forgetting to keep my finger on the button (and so would resume walking again).

I'm also finding that having the primary and secondary fire on the right triggers isn't working for me. I tend to prefer the bullseye, and I was pretty adept in R:FoM at sticking the homing device (secondary fire) on my enemy and immediately shooting at it (primary fire). With them now requiring the same finger (pointer on right hand), it's a lot harder to pull that off, and so I was mostly using the Bullseye without the homing feature. Maybe that change was made to weaken those sorts of weapons, for all I know... [Update: I found where you can configure the control layout, using a few templates that they provide, or setting each button the way that you want it to be! Yay! I did that, played a couple of Team Deathmatches, and had more kills than deaths each time! Much, much better!]

Similarly, the Berserker mode that you can go into as a Chimera requires you to press the down arrow on the directional pad, which numerous times resulted in my map coming up, full-screen, blocking my view (it's activated by the left arrow on that same pad). There also seems to be only certain times when you can invoke the Berserker rage, such that I'd stop to find that damn down arrow, press it, see that nothing had changed, and then take a sniper bullet through the noggin! I'm hoping that all of these issues are just a learning curve and will be things that I'll never think about again after playing a few more (hundreds of) hours!

It seemed, at times, like I was lightly "sticking" to some objects, although that may've simply been a lack of coordination on my part. For example, I was backing away from an enemy and ran into a narrow pillar on a building, but couldn't seem to move around it easily (and hence was a sitting duck for the other guy). That happened a few times, in different situations, and I started wondering if they'd introduced a Gears of War-like "sticky surface" feature into the game. Hopefully not.

For some strange reason, for an extended period last night I was on a squad that apparently was made up entirely of Spanish speaking players (plus me). It made for a very surreal experience, as it felt like I was listening to Radio Espanol the whole time... and I did actually hear a few "Ay Carumbas" during that time! I didn't bother using my headset last night but I'll probably add that to the mix shortly.

Speaking of such things, Boneman tells me today that he now has access to the Beta, thanks to a co-worker not wanting to use the one he got! Therefore I may get to try stuff out with an online friend, which would be awesome! Since 2-player split screen is supported, we may actually be able to try out a 4-person Co-op adventure (Boneman, his son, Vicki and I). I couldn't make it into any 8-person Co-ops last night, because they'd fill up too quickly. I thought about creating my own, but then figured that I'd just get 7 idiots joining and wouldn't want to stick with it for the entire level (and as host, if I leave, everyone else is booted out, too, I think).

It's still too early for a verdict on this game, but I will say that the quality during gameplay has been high. You never know, with a Beta, just how many glitches you're going to experience, and I still may encounter lots. Last night, however, it was pretty much seamless and felt like production-quality to me. As noted in a previous post, though, they need to improve some of the menuing and flow outside of the matches themselves.