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Maxed out the Engineer's main weapon slot today (that's what she said).  Between that and the amazing matches had with Kim and Dan, I feel like a goddamn superhero.

And I felt like Zeus, unleashing hot death from above via the UAV bombing fools and wrecking tanks.

You were quite good at the UAV.  I played a good bit as the Assault Class last night, and while it took a bit to get used to running in terror from tanks (as opposed to seeing them as rich, tempting veins of points for an Engineer), I found my feet by the end.  I unlocked smoke grenades as a gadget, which are absolutely fantastic in Rush games.

The best part was seeing through the UAV two guys running toward my position at the UAV control console, getting out just in time to see one of them smoke a guy who was near my position, and ambushing them in the bushes.

That's awesome.  The only way it could have been better is if you C4'd the terminal before hiding.

I just picked up Final Fantasy so I'll probably be on that most of the week but if you guys get some squads going just shout at me on IM/txt/twitter and I'll flop over.

How does BFBC2 handle party chat? Does it limit it to private chat within groups or do you have to open chat to the whole squad/side, or is it completely open?

Weirdly, I haven't heard many people using chat on the few games I've played thus far.

Party chat works like any other game that plays nice with it - only the people in your party can hear you, and it doesn't matter if they're in another squad, on the other team, or in another match, or whatever.  Game chat works, but yeah, not a lot people seem to use it.

Any game where I can get more kills than deaths, and by a factor of twice over (18 kills to 7 deaths) is AWESOME! by my standards. That ship level we did after Dan and Han quit was epic. Apologies to whomever was on the ATV when I decided the best way to capture the flag was to jump off it while ramming the ATV into said flag and defender.

All I saw was bits of metal and a body cartwheeling by me.

That was me, Gilmer!  But yeah, lots of fun.  I am glad I finally broke the shrinkwrap on the game, although I feel like I have a huge amount of leveling to catch up on.

Gaining levels isn't as big a deal as unlocking equipment for your classes. The medic, for example, is kind of pointless until you at least unlock the medkit, and not really useful until you unlock the defib kit. Also, the engineer doesn't reach the peak of his utility until you get at least the second bazooka. But the weapon and equipment unlocks go by quickly.

Am I being daft with the medic, because I've had the defib kit since the get go, and then I apparently unlocked it?

IDGI

Collector's edition? Or some store specific unlock, perhaps. Like Amazon UK's awesome one that gives the engy his best gun (AK47) from the start. I shot well past the drill in my first ever round, thanks to that!

Incidently I'd say the engy is one class that's pretty much set as soon as you get the first unlock (drill). Rocket launcher 1 and 2 aren't game changingly different (both lock on the tags and both are otherwise unguided).

The other part that was cracking me up even after I stopped playing last night was when I realized Dan was on another call and BOTH of us were following him. We had stopped at the bottom of a hill and the three of us are standing there and I hear Dan making a point about something not in the game and we're both waiting for him to lead us somewhere and I called out that dudes were coming in and we just all got hosed by a light machine gunner.

That was when I realized that Dan was distracted and maybe we should follow him too closely ;p

That attic was working out GREAT for me until someone RPG'ed the hell out of it. And can I just say how much I HATED rakeman? I have to respect the dude for beign an Angel of Death with a pistol though.

I enjoyed going out on the high of 18 kills to 7 deaths on the last level. That sunken ship level is GREAT. The only thing was that I couldn't get anyone else to realize we had two dudes who kept camping behind the spawn point. I had to keep going around to kill them before they could C4 the tanks or shoot the spawners.

I managed to do pretty well with the tank driving but I can't fly a chopper for the lift of me. I need to do it in the single player game a bit before I try in MP.

I disliked driving in BF1943, and I dislike driving in BFBC2. There's something about stomping to and from location to location, even when it's not advisable, that seems more versatile to me. I can chose the backroads and hide in the bushes, laying in wait for an opportunity.

I was wondering why Dan was talking about all of these things in a one-sided conversation last night, but I just ignored it and kept on shooting dudes.

Last night was not a great run, especially when we got stomped a couple of games in a row. But I got some great kills from afar with my grenade launcher and bazooka against encamped enemies, and I killed four dudes defending the flag in the sunken ship.

We need to coordinate better. One or two engineers, one medic, and one assault soldier, and we should be able to run the town. Engineers do the lifting, medic revives, soldier rearms.

I had the drill from the get-go as well for the engineer. I got the AMazon unlock.

I've been doing some looking around, and it looks as though all pre-orders (or all purchases?) got the collectors edition unlocks from the start.  Not entirely sure what that means, other than I already have access to some stuff that I wouldn't have had otherwise.  Weird.

We need to coordinate better. One or two engineers, one medic, and one assault soldier, and we should be able to run the town. Engineers do the lifting, medic revives, soldier rearms

I tried gettign my medic score up to get paddles last night and it just wasn't happening so I switched back to assault. The problem with revives is that when Dan would take the time to revive someone he'd get shot while doing so, and since we were clumped up I'd come back just in to to get strafed with Dan and die again.

With the "spawn on" ability it's almost easier to wait a few seconds and respawn on a squaddie than revive under fire.

Engineers are a nice idea but can get wasted if you have tank shells incoming and the enginneer is outside trying to fix the vehicle.

I think part of the problem last night was a few of us not being used to BFBC2 yet as well as the other team actually having some damn good players.

Ever get tired that you're the only soldiers advancing and dying while the rest of your team plays flyboys or snipers? Then you may wish to be a sniper cop (i.e. grief the living fuck out of your sniping teammates until they actually contribute to the team's overall success).

That FUCKING bastard Rakeman was merciless.  And of course the thing I hate more than anything else about big multiplayer games is the camping bastards.  Oh you're so sneaky.

The thing is, how would Chick or any other sniper cop tell the difference between a Recon just padding his stats, and a Recon who's doing his job by spotting enemies, calling in mortars, and sniping around the objective?  During the match, I don't have time to stop and analyze my teammates' behavior.

It's practically impossible to tell, but maybe if the friendly sniper is nowhere near the combat zones?

I guess so.  And on some maps, getting a good sniping position on the objectives is really difficult, so seeing a sniper perched out of the way there is probably a big tip-off.

As a sniper in this game you can literally make the 2 km shots if you can get LoS so being out in the "middle of nowhere" doesn't really say much. Hell, some of the better spots to snipe on certain maps fit that description. The lighthouse can be deadly for raining mortar fire or shots down on the beach/hill as an example.

If they're a high-level sniper, I'd prefer them stay out of combat zones, really.  A played a game of Rush with one in my squad who sat on whatever our main spawn was (he moved forward as we took territory) with his x12 scope and picked off dudes with alarming accuracy.  I told the squad I was heading for A, then had a guy pop out from around a corner as I was reloading.  He fell down dead before he could kill me thanks to my guy back at base.

Also, I noticed last night that Assault class can carry C4, depending on what their main gun is.  This can only make my tank hunting obsession even more hilarious/ridiculously dangerous.

And in Rush, it takes 14 C-4 charges to destroy one M-COM, or 12 if you have the explosives upgrade. Just a thought on taking out heavily defended centers.

Man, I love Rush games.  I'm looking forward to Squad Rush becoming available for everybody, rather than just gamestop pre-orders.

The only mode I'm not interested in is Squad Deathmatch.

I haven't tried that one, but the idea of four squads going at it with a tank to fight over in the middle sounds fun.  I might check it out at some point.

Rush and Conquest give me lots of vehicles to go after, though, and I love hunting tanks and helicopters.  I'm not sure if my need to shower the battlefield in metal can be met by one paltry tank to kick around.

Tom Chick is a decent writer but I disagree with him on pretty much everything.

His assessment of Deadly Premonition is my latest disagreement with him, but I can at least see why he felt unengaged by it.

I wonder when/if we'll see a title update on the 360 version to match the patch that went live for the PC version.