First impression, the AC-130 is a little weak to be honest. I find it's a little too vulnerable at the moment from stuff like AA, or jets or even choppers. To make the most of it, you really need all the gun positions taken and a couple of people really looking out for it on the ground too. I took it down with 2 AA missiles and a burst of the AA gun from a nicked LAV-AD. Being in it though is freaking AWESOME
Nothing beats raining death from above. It's also hilarious sitting in a flag point when suddenly a howitzer goes off in front of you and blows up the rest of your squad.Quad bikes make a welcome return to BF and I have to say this is the most fun I've had for the whole night. A friend and I were charging around the map, just the 2 of us, on a quad bike each jumping over ditches, craters, whatever there was to launch off. I haven't had so much fun in ages! It was also hilarious because we were able to back-cap a lot of points without the enemy realising. I can see them having a genuine use in slightly more serious games, beyond who can launch highest off the blast craters around the map.
Finally the maps. I have now played a couple of rounds on Tank superiority and it's a pretty fun game mode. Both times I played on Bandar desert, which was a bag of fun. Admittedly I got sick of the vehicle stuff and was pulling off 1KM headshots with the L96 for most of it, but spotting ALL the tanks is still super useful to my teammates.
Armoured shield is a fantastic map reminiscent of Heavy metal from BFBC2, albeit a bit more open to take advantage of the tanky nature. It's also quite a balanced map and a lot of fun can be had. The craters around the fields are particularly awesome to launch the quad bikes off, although my friend jumped over an engineer hiding with his mortar, and he exploded in front of me. Hilarity ensued. Also being chased around by little birds whilst on quads is awesome.
Death Valley is the final map I played, and the dusk setting is fantastic. It really makes flanking manoeuvres viable, and the large use of air keeps everyone on their toes. This was the map I got the LAV AD on though, and it can be fairly easy to hide and bring the pain to the air units in the game.
Overall I'm super stoked to have gotten premium for this expansion alone as it's a bag of fun and will certainly keep me entertained for many months to come
