I’ve been playing quite a bit of this since the early release on Tuesday last week, and I have to say I’m loving it, for the most part. They do deliver on some huge maps, as promised, and some great tank warfare, as advertised. Most of these maps require an entirely new set of skills and startegy to be successful. Snipers and medics are not quite as useful here, while support and engineers can change the whole scope of the battle.
The new game type, Tank Domination, is outright madness. Total chaos as each team is given enough tanks to level a small town and unleashed on one flag out in the middle of the map. No gunship, no jets or helicopters, just plain earth-shaking ground assault. The amount of explosions, rockets, shells, mines, and smoke is staggering when this is played on a full server. It’s probably been some of the most fun I’ve had since harassing hover tanks, by dropping proximity mines out of the back of a speeding jeep on BF2142.
The new vehicles delivered in this pack have also been great in my opinion. The tank destroyer is fast, agile, and a great addition to an armored squad. Mobile artillery is also a fun addition to the battle, especially when you get lucky like me and watch an enemy jet fly through your rocket barrage and burst into flames. The quads of course are fun, but I think the most highly anticipated vehicle for me was the C130 Gunship. To clarify, if you haven’t been in it yet, you don’t fly it. It’s connected to a flag, and becomes a spawn point for your team while you control that flag. You can either spawn in the artillery cannon or the auto cannon if those seats are empty, or parachute out of it if not. It can dominate the map, or just become a death trap depending on how good the enemy team is. If they concentrate on the ground and don’t have any coordination with air and anti-air units then it will fly around for a long time, dropping devastation on the area. If they do work at destroying it, it’s easily accomplished in just a few attack runs or assaults with anti-air weapons.
There is one drawback to the pack and that involves the gunship. On Rush, the attacking team gets the gunship, without having to control a point, and the enemy usually has the option of trying to shoot it out of the sky or defend the objectives. In my opinion this is just too much. The defenders should have mobile AA, more aircraft, or the attackers should only get the gunship once if at all.
Overall, this is a great pack. If this is any indication the last two in the Premium package are going to be great and I can see myself enjoying this game for quite some time.