A Live Journal Of Battlefield: Bad Company 2's Onslaught Mode

I haven't kept up on my Battlefield: Bad Company 2 news. Like Matt Bertz, Game Informer's resident Battlefield freak, I lost interest in the game's multiplayer component once I unlocked all of the weapons and the servers became plagued with insufferable lag. I honestly didn't think I would be going back to play this game again any time soon, if ever. That tune changed when Bertz asked me if I would be interested in playing Bad Company 2's newest DLC entitled Onslaught.

I have no idea what Onslaught is. I'd like to think that it has something to do with the X-Men villain Onslaught, but I doubt this is the case. Yes, I could just ask someone here to fill me in, but where's the fun in that? I'm going to jump into this session with my blindfold on. What could possibly go wrong?

The plan is to start playing around 4 PM CT. I'll be providing up-to-the-minute play-by-play for the entire session.

Update 1: We should be starting in a few minutes. The Game Informer squad consists of Matt Bertz, Jeff Marchiafava, Nick Ahrens, and myself. I'm seeing here that Fava has not finished Mass Effect 2 yet. I'll be sure to talk about its ending with the other GI staffers once we get started.

A little confusion starting off. Fava and I both picked the medic class. One of us was supposed to be the engineer. I'm going to try and lure a few enemies behind Fava. Once he dies, he can respawn as the engineer.

Bertz is our assault class. Nick is our cheap sniper.

My plan worked! Fava is dead! He's now respawning as an engineer.

So far, Onslaught feels like a mix between Conquest and Rush. The maps are laid out like the Rush mode, but instead of blowing up a crate you need to capture the flag and hold it during an enemy counter-attack. One weakness – the enemies are much easier to kill than human opponents. They seem to have problems reading the tactics of multiple people approaching at once. I've come across a few soldiers who run out into the open and then stop, almost as though their AI is being rebooted. Others flow in a steady stream down the hillside toward our reticles.

After securing four points (A, B, C, and D) we unlocked a 10 point achievement for completing Valparaiso's map in Onslaught.

Bertz killed 53 people. What a stud. I won't list how many I killed. I blame the live blogging for not having as many kills as him.

All right, new map. We're in the Atacama Desert. Bertz just secured a tank. I'm mounting its gun. So far, Bertz is a decent driver, but he's fearless. Enemy tanks everywhere. This will end poorly.

Wow. We made it to A without dying. Nicely done, Bertz.

We secured A. Fava keeps dying. We may need to replace him with a random player if he keeps holding us back. Great. He's in a helicopter. If he crashes, that's it.

This map is a lot harder than the first one we tried. The enemy contingent is heavily armed with vehicles and rocket launchers. I'm down.

Bertz is down.

And Nick's death brings a game over.

That means Fava crashed that helicopter. Son of a...

The way this works, if everyone is dead at once, and you don't have someone to spawn on, the mission is over. We'll have to be more careful with our tactics.

Moving on to the Isla Inocentes map. Stay away from the helicopters, Fava. Seriously. Leave them be. A quick boat ride has landed me on A. I'm holding my own. I'm pretty awesome. Bertz is at my side. We're a wrecking crew.

The enemy has just brought in a helicopter. Troops are parachuting in. We're boned. This is crazy. This map is insanely hard as well...which is great.

Nick has a lock on the bird.  He's screaming in the microphone. I can't quite make him out, but I'm guessing his rockets downed the helicopter.

We finally took A. It took us nine minutes to do it, but the enemies were heavily entrenched, and our tactics, to be frank, really sucked.

Taking a boat to across the water to B proved to be costly. A nicely placed shot by a mounted rocket ended my landing attempt. Respawning and taking the highway. Bertz managed to take B by himself. I have a feeling he's fed up with the rest of us. Changing his name to Rambo for the remainder of this blog. Fava will be Worthless.

And...someone just captured C. I was nowhere near it. Must have been Rambo. It was. No surprise there.

Rambo ends the match with 43, kills. Nick had 32. I had 25. Worthless pulled in 14.

Moving on to Atacama Desert again. Hopefully we can fare better this time. I really wish this mode had new maps. I've played all of these hundreds of times already.

Standing behind Fava; watching him snipe. Pathetic. And someone just yelled "Leeroy Jenkings moments before running into a group of enemies. That person was me.

Our tactics are getting better, but I still have no idea what Fava is doing. None whatsoever. We've managed to get to A, but the enemies just keep coming. We've been standing on this point forever, and we can't seem to get it. They just keep storming from all directions.

Apparently, Spain just scored in the soccer game. Bertz is upset, ranting. We're in trouble. Stay focused, Rambo. Stay focused.

We secured A, and managed to reach B without any resistance. The enemy has a helicopter. Much like any Xbox Live player, the heli doesn't mind raining down rockets on its own troops, just as long as it can get a kill. Nick took it out fairly quickly. He's a stud with the rockets.

B secured as well. Moving on to C.Two tanks stand in our way. This will be interesting. Sending Fava out as a distraction. About time he did something. And he's dead. One tank to go.

Another nicely placed rocket by Nick has cleared the way. Our squad is doing a great job tagging all targets. We're making quick work of these guys, and there are tons of them. Whoa. That map took us 30 minutes to complete. Not a great par time. Bertz had 78 kills. I had 66. Nick pulled in 52. Fava had 17. Ugh.

Moving on to Nelson Bay. I love this map.

A quick sprint to A proved to be costly. Our entire team died in 30 seconds. Reloading. I should point out that we are playing the game on the Hard difficulty, which lands us 10 achievement points per map. Hardcore difficulty nets 20 each.

Following Fava through the snow. I don't think he sees that mounted machine gun up ahead. He's dead. Nick's dead. I'm dead. Rambo is on his own...again. This map has been pretty easy so far. A and B were secured with little effort. Visibility on this map is much easier since it's day. I wish the MP map was this way. A little tension between Fava and I right now. He needs health. I refuse to give it. Maybe I'd give it up iif he killed more than 17 enemies last round.

And....what just happened?

Fava secured C all by himself? No f'n way. Bertz must have been spotting him. And with Fava finally helping the team (giving Bertz all the credit), this live blog comes to an end.

Would I recommend Onslaught mode? Definitely. It doesn't offer much in terms of new content, but playing these maps with friends at your side is a blast, and the leaderboards show off your best time.