Homefront Multiplayer

I’ve played a few hours on Homefront’s multiplayer tonight, using the Ground Control playlist.  Ground Control is about taking control of three areas on the map and holding onto them.. after a short while the fight moves along the map with another three spots to fight over.

As none of my friends own the game, this meant playing with randoms.. and well.. there really wasn’t much team-work to be found.  Many players seemed to either find themselves a nice camping spot or just run straight into trouble, ignoring enemy drones which really need to be taken out if they’re not going to be used to mark up the whole team.

After some unsuccessful runs with the basic Assault loadout, I switched to the Sniper.
When playing Battlefield: Bad Company 2 with friends a while ago, I found sniping to be fairly successful on larger maps.. and Homefront’s maps are all a decent size.  The risk of sniping, of course, is that you get accused of camping if you sit around for longer than a few kills.. add that to my general impatience for sitting still, and I found myself best off taking a few kills and creeping forward.. hoping the enemy weren’t able to just run around the back of me.

My favourite map is possibly Suburbs, as there are plenty of buildings to hide in, although it does mean plenty of routes for the enemy to sneak along too.  I just wish I had friends in the game, so we could do more damage!  After this weekend I suspect I won’t be returning to Homefront, instead going to Battlefield because my friends are there.

Battlefield Bad Company 2

I picked up EA’s Battlefield Bad Company 2 through Steam, after another too-good-to-miss offer.  Tim already had it, and though I could have just borrowed his PC to play the singleplayer, I tend to prefer having my own copy anyway.

After installing.. and a painful sign-in to EA.. I attempted to join multiplayer with Tim and some friends.  However, having been dumped on the opposite team to the guys I found myself without any direction as to where to go, and then quickly became frustrated when snipers kept picking off the few targets I managed to see on the radar.

The next attempts at multiplayer were much better as we were able to form a squad of our own, meaning we were always on the same team.  I liked the ability to respawn onto a squad-mate too, as that meant getting straight back into the action, rather than getting killed after paying more attention to finding a friend than what you’re walking past..

Playing while not in a frustrated mood allowed me to recognise how nice the game looks too 🙂

After starting on the regular soldier type class, I tried out the recon class, and surprised myself when I managed to get on quite well with the sniper rifle..  Normally I’m too impatient to sit still and wait, but there wasn’t too much waiting around at all.  Marking up a target or assisting in a kill also gains points, so if I wasn’t able to actually kill somebody, I still got credit for marking them.. bonus! 🙂

The tanks felt rather slow and too easy for enemies to surround.. although you can repair them, it seemed easier to jump out and try to run for cover.. or be blown up in the explosion!

I didn’t like my first few helicopter encounters, as they seemed impossible to take down and the crew were able to hit quite hard.  However, they’re great when they’re on your side, especially when you have friends you can communicate with!  Our group had one person fly while the other two looked after the mounted guns.. and they were a lot of fun to use 🙂

Flying isn’t easy though – I guess this is to balance out how strong they are on the field.  My turn at flying ended in disaster: I started to tip forward as soon as I got the helicopter off the ground, then my attempt to bring the nose up then resulted in flying backwards and crashing!  Maybe one to try out on an empty server sometime..