Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Review

 

There’s been plenty of comparisons made between Bad Company 2 and Modern Warfare 2, either by reviewers or even by DICE(Bad Company 2 developers). I promise I’ll avoid such comparisons and will focus my review squarely on Bad Company 2. Battlefield Bad Company 2 is the sequel to DICE’s console franchise. But this time, DICE listened to their PC fans and released it for the PC too. Instead of retrofitting it as a PC port, DICE has released a proper PC version(with dedicated servers and all that jazz).

 

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 differs from most battlefield games in one major way, there is a single player campaign in it. The story follows a group of ragtag soldiers(Bad Company) chasing after a mysterious doomsday device. There’s some pretty neat set pieces in Bad Company 2’s single player campaign like the World War 2 opening mission, a quad bike race, and a humvee sequence.

     

Most of the missions are scripted and restricted to small areas except for one mission which allows you to travel across the desert to get to your objectives. While it’s cool that this mission demonstrates the scale of a Battlefield game, the mission itself felt too tedious as you get into one corridor gun fight after another at each objective location. It just gets too long and repetitive(this particular mission that is).

 

Bad Company 2 throws up some witty dialogue between the characters in the story. You’ll learn more about the personality of these four colourful characters(which feel like real characters rather than emotionless drones). Only the character you take control of, Marlow, is a little disappointing and boring.

 

 

Despite the comical banter, the story is lame and gets muddled in what I feel are disconnected missions. However, I must applaud DICE for the effort, they’ve certainly upped their game, but here’s to hoping they’ll blow us away with their next single player offering.

 

Multiplayer’s where Battlefield Bad Company 2 really shines as it’s really on a league of it’s own. This isn’t a corridor shooter  multiplayer experience that takes place in a small square, but it takes place in a large environment. I’m talking kilometers in dimension. You’d get to use vehicles to transport yourself and others across the map as well as assault the enemy. Tanks, quad bikes, APC, amphibious boats, attack choppers and the sorts.

 

 

This distinction is really what the Battlefield series is known for, large scale warzones with many players. A maximum of 32 players in a single match. A team is further split into squads of four people. This allows you to have a more intimate experience in the bigger warzone. You are encouraged to get into a squad as you are given extra bonus experience points for helping out a squad.

 

Speaking of experience points, Bad Company 2 has an unlock system that rewards players with new weapons and perks. As you level up by gaining experience points, you get cooler toys to play with. The unlocks are a great motivation for players to play better and fulfill the teams objectives. Certain weapons feel a tad bit imbalanced at the moment(the medics M60 and the engineer’s Carl Gustav being two) but it isn’t absolutely overpowering the rest of the weapons roster.

 

    

Bad Company 2 is also a class based multiplayer shooter. You get to pick from four different classes, the medic, assault, engineer, and recon class(sniper). Each of these classes plays a pivotal role on the battlefield and you need to have a good mix to be an effective squad or team. The assault class is the regular grunt that is able to unlock assault rifles and throw down ammo packs.

 

 

The medic has the ability to throw down medipacks to heal others and carry a light machinegun. Engineers repair vehicles and recon gets sniper rifles and has motion sensors(helps team detect the enemy).  Your experiences points counts to an overall rank and for each of the class. What that means is that, the more you play the assault class the more experience you gain for that class and unlocks. It’s a tad bit irritating that the class specific abilities are not unlocked on the offset but you quickly get them if you stick to your class.

 

 

The two main multiplayer modes are conquest and rush(there’s the usual squad death match but I’ll just ignore that). Conquest is the typical battlefield game. You have capture points scattered around the map, and those that control the most before the timer runs out wins the game. The maps are huge and the freedom to move about coordinating attacks is what makes this mode so awesome.

 

The only downside is, you need to be extremely coordinated to have any fun in this mode. Playing in pub games is an exercise in frustration as your teammates don’t necessarily do things for the good of your team. You run the risk of getting spawn camped if your team doesn’t work together well. Which makes this mode not the best choice for a pub game(great for competitive games no doubt).

 

 

The rush mode in my mind, is the best addition in this game. In rush, teams are given an objective to defend or attack the MCOM stations. For the attacking team, the first point will have two MCOM stations and once those are destroyed two new MCOM stations are unlocked and the defending team falls back to them. This repeats until the defenders are left with the final two MCOM station(also there is a time limit in this mode).

 

This allows for a more focused experience as the objectives are limited by the progress of the attacking team.  This mode works much better for pub games as it is more contained and not as demanding(in terms of team coordination) as the conquest mode. In my opinion this should be the default mode that all players should go for in a pub match.

 

 

The frostbite engine DICE uses for Bad Company 2 has had an upgrade in it’s tech. DICE touts its destruction 2.0 feature a lot in previews for this game and for good reason. It’s not just about blowing up holes in walls, but now you can bring down entire buildings. This changes the game so much, it’s hard to explain what it does for the game. No hiding spot is safe, hiding in a corner of a room, better watch out they don’t blow the walls off or worse, the whole building collapses on you.

 

 

The engine’s also been visually improved. If you’ve got a top of the line PC, you could crank the settings all the way up and be amazed at the visual quality of the game. Even if you don’t, there lots of options to scale the graphics for your machine. Battlefields are now littered with fancy particle effects such as sand storms in the desert and snow in colder climate maps. This makes them feel like a real living battlefield rather than a map with just themed textures. It does make it a bit harder to spot enemies though.

 

 

Battlefield Bad Company 2 offers a multiplayer experience that no other game offers, with its huge battlefields and experience point system. It stands on it’s own as a remarkable multiplayer shooter that will have a long lasting community of players. If you like multiplayer shooters, you will find Bad Company 2 an excellent proposition.

 

 

Pros:

- Graphics look awesome

- Nice particle effects

- Destruction 2.0 makes no place a safe hiding spot as building collapse. Removal of prone does help to make the game more fluid(snipers can still be a pain but at least they can’t completely disappear by going prone now).

- Unlock and perk system adds a meta game dynamic that gives players lots of options how to kit their class.

- Single players got some neat sequence

- Funny dialogue in single player

- Has dedicated servers

 

Cons:

-Single player missions feel a bit disconnected

- Storyline is weak.

-Conquest can get frustrating if you play in an uncoordinated team. You can get spawn camped.

- Carl Gustav rocket launchers are not cool.

- Server browser could still use some improvement

 

Verdict: Bravo Two is go!