I like winter maps more than desert maps but I do prefer the layout and scale of Arica Harbor (PS3 beta) much more than Port Valdez (PC beta).
Arica Harbor offered a much more varied gameplay as people were able to flank and could play the strategist role more effectively. Port Valdez is a GNARLY push.. metal against metal and it gets ugly. Not to say there isn't any strategy in Port Valdez, it's just much harder.
I think DICE chose this map for the PC beta because it's so condensed that it would offer the best display of how heavy the network and hardware demands can be.
I too like the snow, taking cover and hiding among the trees has saved me numerous times, then I fly out of the trees and take their dog tags in a flash. But yeah, Arica just was much more entertaining and was harder to draw to a stalemate until late in the match.
The only thing I don't like about the game, after playing the PS3 and PC beta, is the stupid gusts of snow and sand. On Afrika harbor there is constantly drifts of sand going across the screen limiting visibility and graphically it doesn't make the game look any better. In Port Valdez it's just white instead of brown and just as annoying. Why is it that wind always causes drifts in the same places and the wind NEVER subsides? Ugh.
I personally like how that looks, its not to add to graphics, it's to add to the feel of the game.
Heh.
Actually, if you climb the hills at just the right spot while speed running, there's many places I go that I have only ever seen 3 or 4 people go. Once you've done it, it's easy to spot the textures you can run up. I barely ever go down the roads.
I climb those hills like crazy, then rain down noobtubes on the 2nd set of crates, or in the beginning if you go right real fast on the parachute thats good for snipers, but I never snipe. Either way, expect those places to be fixed, they aren't intended obviously as you have to glitch up the hills. Going to the 3rd get really isn't nothing to glitch, you can get on those rocks on that right side, and a bit up on the hill, but it won't help too mcuh as your on the wrong side of the road, and the 4th set isn't much to glitch either.
Either way, PS3 map on the 2nd set of crates, snipers would go way up in the hills (that was too far imo for the map to be wide) and you could also go down by the ocean, that spot in the map was literally almost as wide as this PC map is long.
I'll post up my pathetic stats tonight. I do OK with Engineer class, but totally suck it up under any other class.
