Battlefield: Bad Company 2: Review

Single Player Review by Daniel Brookes

The campaign mode may not be the reason you bought this game, but it’s a good reason to play this game more. Sure the multiplayer may be what you want to play straight away, but put aside around 7 hours of your time and you’ll be rewarded with a very enjoyable campaign experience.

The gameplay is just like online multiplayer, except aim assist is on, and the AI aren’t that intelligent on the normal difficulty, but neither are your squad members in Bad Company, so it balances itself out. It’s basically you vs. enemies with your squad mates chipping in to help, even if they barely kill anyone. This makes the game feel a little less squad like than it should do. But there are moments in the game where you do feel like part of a well functioning squad, mainly during the cutscenes with motivational music discreetly playing in the background. The guns within the game all handle realistically with good recoil, and each weapon feels right. LMGs feel heavy, Sub-Machine Guns feel light, and it all adds to the overall feeling of the game. There are also collectable weapons which add diversity to the supply crates. This means you can tackle almost any level, almost any way you want to.

The levels and cutscenes are well presented, with the levels being introduced by a satellite image, similar to those of that other shooter doing well right now. The cutscenes are also good, even if the graphics aren’t quite top notch, they’re not bad either. Some cutscenes are narrated in a story telling way, which is a nice touch, but not all the way through with led to me asking why they all weren’t narrated this way. There’s also a lot of banter between the squad and there are some great one liners pulled out by your squad members which I found to be quite funny, especially when fun is being poked at Modern Warfare 2 (‘Snowmobiles are for sissy’s!’)

What the campaign also does well, like a lot of other FPS’ is it keeps things fresh, you’re never just shooting things non stop. There’s sniping levels, driving sections and then just flat out assault sections. Even these regular shooting sessions are made unique by the destruction available thanks to DICE’s Frostbite engine. Enemy behind a wall? Blow the wall up. Enemy inside a house. Blow the house up. Yeah, you see where this goes… This makes the campaign enjoyable, even if it only lasts for a mere 7 hours, but with a multiplayer experience that’s very fleshed out and full of stuff to do, I doubt many people will mind.

The levels themselves are very impressive. There are a variety of different, good looking environments, which look just as good after being blown to pieces. There’s even one level where an entire village gets destroyed, and it looks beautiful. The downside to all this content and destruction on screen is that some scenery just pops into view, but that’s a minor problem and you won’t notice it to much.

The only other problem with the campaign is that it just doesn’t feel very epic. It feels like your part of a squad, sure. But it doesn’t have the cinematic moments that rival Modern Warfare 2′s.

Overall the campaign is a fun experience in its own right and is short enough to leave you plenty of time to tackle the multiplayer aspect to the game. But definitely, don’t just leave this out. Go on, head into Bad Company.

Multiplayer Review by Ben Gray

This game really shines in the multiplayer section. Along with the major changes, small but very significant improvements make the game so much easier, accessible and rewarding. Let’s first take a look at the different maps and game types you’ll encounter in multiplayer.

There are four different game types to play in Bad Company 2, and whilst there isn’t as many compared to games such as Modern Warfare 2, the lack of them does have positive effects. Rush, Conquest, Squad Rush and Squad Deathmatch are the four, each offering something different and unique to play. In Rush, attackers try to destroy M-COM stations whilst defenders protect them from destruction whilst trying to take out as many attackers as possible. Squad Rush is basically the same but a 4v4 style which requires slightly more thought and strategy. Conquest, which many of you would have encountered in Battlefield 1943, has 3 or 4 flags on the map which each team will try and take control of as many as they can and keep them under their control for as long as they can. Dependent on how many flags you hold will affect how fast your team respawn limit goes down. If your team’s hits zero, you lose. Finally, Squad Deathmatch has four squads of four fight each other to see which squad can get 50 kills first.

These gametypes result in high adrenaline, action packed matches, especially on Rush and Conquest where huge battles will take place at targets for control. The lack of game types means that you can also select whether to have any map or a specific map, and 99% of the time there will always be a match with your criteria you can jump straight into. Hardcore Mode can be activated for skilled and advanced player’s as well for each of the four types of play. You can enter games with Squads of four players; this allows you to spawn on players which can prove very useful indeed. Unfortunately, you can only have four players to a squad, even when it is eight versus eight, but it would become a bit overwhelming having 7 players spawning on a player in the middle of a 1 v 1 showdown. A larger variety of game types would have meant more choice in what you play but wouldn’t give you the privilege of selecting what map you would like to play it on, which is often great if you are a fan of certain maps and don’t like others.

The result of having incredible matches means that maps have to be considerably big to play on. There is a wide variety of maps in different settings that can go from dull unscathed landscapes to lively warzones within minutes. Settings vary from the deserts of Afghanistan to the wide complex of rivers in lush jungles to freezing cold wintry maps that fog makes t difficult to see long range at times. Some of the maps can get quite tedious on some game modes, and some maps don’t even support all game modes, but EA plan to expand this via downloadable content, not just with brand new, fresh maps but with current maps on different game types for free. For instance, Map Pack 2 will be free for VIPs on March 30^th, and will have Arica Harbour on Conquest, whereas before it was limited to Squad/Rush and Squad Deathmatch, and Laguna Presa on Rush, whereas before it could only be played on Conquest and Squad Deathmatch, which in this case will expand the map to new territory anyway. It will be interesting to see what EA have planned in terms of downloadable content. Also, some of the maps on Bad Company 2 are at night, giving you the cover of darkness which works effectively with snipers and UAVs.

Onto vehicles now; this is what makes games so action packed. When you’ve got Hind’s in the air raining death from above whilst tanks are tearing holes in walls to catch unsuspecting targets and ATV’s are zooming past trying to get to different locations quicker than others whilst a Heavy MG is trying to take them out, you can see where this would get quite exciting. Sizes of maps will usually portray what type of vehicles you will encounter on it, but the huge variety on land, sea and air is what makes this game very fun to play, with various different options of getting from place to place whilst kicking enemy ass. Obviously besides other vehicles to take out vehicles, there is all sorts from Stationary AT’s where you guide the missile to it’s target (and they can bow down in your superiority after you just took down their chopper with four occupants inside whilst on the move) to Anti Tank mines that can be placed on the ground to surprise unsuspecting tank drivers. Vehicle Specialisations are part of your classes and can vary from Alternate Fire to radar that can detect enemies and mines. Overall it can be pretty fun, although it does require a lot of skills early on to fly helicopters as the controls are very frustrating and with no private matches in the game to practice in, you need to be able to learn fast.

There are a LOT of weapons in multiplayer to use and unlock. There are plenty of each type of weapon; an equal quantity to satisfy all types of players. Class Customization is fast and very well executed. During games it takes a matter of seconds to scroll to each ‘segment’, choose your preferences and dive in, and these can be changed any time whilst you are dead in game. You have a Primary Weapon, Secondary Weapon, Gadget and three specializations.  Primary Weapons are as usual in games, secondary weapons are all pistols to keep things balanced (referencing to Dual Models, for those who know what I’m talking about), Gadgets such as Grenade Launchers, Smoke Launchers (which are ten times more useful than they sound), rocket launchers, defibrillators, C4, you get my drift. The first specialization is attachments like sights, the second is for Marksman Training and the third is for vehicles. Sounds frustrating? It really isn’t. You can only use certain primary weapons on certain classes but then the specializations/gadgets adjust to that class. It is a shame that there are no custom classes, as if you want a big change in class it can take a while to go from one to another. Stats and Awards add collectible and competitiveness to the game, such as pins for different accolades i.e. best squad, kills with certain weapons.

You can also earn stars for getting kills with weapons/vehicles, showing just how much you use a weapon/vehicle. It will take a while to get a high star grade on a gun, but it shows your love for that particular weapon. Vehicles on the other hand are starred in groups, with an overall star for light vehicles, heavy vehicles, air, water and stationary. It a shame it doesn’t star each vehicle individually as it does give false impressions. If you see a person get a kill in a helicopter and it says they are a Gold Star 9 in that ‘category’, people will think “Hey that guy is really good in choppers!”, when he could have got that star purely from UAV kills. There have been issues since launch regarding servers, but this is a problem with EA’s poor estimations and not the game itself.

Overall, Battlefield Bad Company 2’s multiplayer does have its ups and downs compared to other first person shooters, but if you want a fresh but similar experience, this is certainly for you. Is it better than the high standard, very popular MW2 multiplayer? In my opinion, yes it is. Take it how you will, but everyone’s view will be different in this game. This is the definition of online warfare.