The highly anticipated sequel to the 2008 smash hit Battlefield Bad Company has arrived. Once again we find ourselves involved in the misadventures of misfit, fictional United States Army Battalion “bad company” consisting of Private Preston Marlowe, Tech expert Private Terrence Sweetwater, demolitions expert Private George Haggard, and squad leader Sergeant Samuel Redford. This time around the squad finds themselves involved in a special operation in which they must stop the aurora; a dangerous machine created by the Japanese during World War 2.
We catch up on “bad company” somewhere in Russia where they are fighting to secure a device related to the aurora. This was meant to be there last mission but it turns out Army General Braidwood has other ideas. The boys are shipped off to Bolivia in search of an agent named Aguire. From here on all hell breaks loose and the men of bad company soon find that this may their last mission for more than one reason.
The gameplay of Bad Company 2 continues on from the original. The fully destructible environment returns and it is still as fantastic as ever with pieces of wood and concrete flying around the screen reminiscent of the nightmare of war. And also it’s a lot of fun just to blow stuff into a million pieces. This new system is called Destruction 2.0 and as you all may be happy to know whole buildings can now be destroyed. This put a big smile on my face the first time I actually blew one up. The environments range from the cold, dark snowy wastelands of Russia to the exotic, vibrant, buzzing forests of Bolivia. Enemies seem to suit the environment they originate from. What I mean by this is that guerrilla troops you face will usually be quite aggressive and fire off shots at will, whereas trained army troops and patrols will try to stick to cover and only shoot whenever you or a team mate appears in clear site.
Another in depth feature that you will notice is the realism of bullet shots. A whole new feature named bullet drop makes bullets act on the forces of gravity in consideration of distance i.e snipers will have to consider wind, range, angles etc instead of merely lining someone up in between your sights. Also this is only the second game in the entire series to have a blood effect when you shoot someone or get shot yourself. BC2 features 15 real life vehicles included in it ranging from the computer controlled UAV plane to a quad bike. This provides an enjoyable method of travelling around a level or indeed during a multiplayer a game which we shall look at now.
The multiplayer as we all know is a game in itself and at this present time if the game has a quality multiplayer it will increase the overall opinion of the game incredibly. I can tell you right now that anyone looking from a break from the frustrations of MW2 will find a fantastic replacement in BC2. So what’s the multiplayer all about? Well a player can choose from a variety of kits consisting of the scout, medic, assault and engineer classes. A fully customizable weapon set up is present for the first time in the series and enables and fluent and easy way of changing about your set ups to suit your style. Similar to MW2 a player can unlock attachments to their weapons such as the armor piercing magnum rounds or the health increasing body armour.
Experience points are rewarded to a player during a game depending on their influence on the game and how relevant their actions are to winning the match. Bonuses are awarded typically for headshots or multi-man sprays as is the norm in FPS games. A unique feature to the franchise is the dog tag system. Dog tags are awarded for killing an enemy with a melee attack and this leads to the award of trophies etc to the player. Incorporated into the game is a function called Punkbuster – an Anti-Cheat system for online multiplayer games
Similar to other multiplayer games there is a variety of game types available for the player to indulge in. The first is called Rush and it consists of players must defend or destroy pairs of M-COM stations for as long as the attacking teams respawn limit holds out. An M-COM station can be destroyed by planting a charge, using conventional weapons or when a building is collapsed down on it. So in other words there is a lot of fighting and blowing stuff up.
The next game type is conquest which is a game involving a domination type scenario where flags are captured and must be held for as long as the enemy’s respawn limit remains. As you capture flags vehicles will appear on the map which can benefit your team.
Squad Deathmatch consists of four separate teams of players fighting it out to be the first team to 50 kills and Squad Rush is two teams of four players playing the rush game mode.
So how does the game look? Well off the bat I can safely say the game is beautiful. Fully destructible environments intertwined with fantastic scenery and character models will always put a smile on a gamers face. The guns are brilliant and the game really goes toe to toe with MW2, its main competitor. In a sense it reminds me of an updated version of MAG, obviously with less players but the type of game portrayed is similar and in my mind game developers must be thinking that big is beautiful because the levels and maps playable throughout BC2 are huge on scale and wonderfully crafted and detailed.
The audio accompaniment is fantastic and provides a wonderful pulsating ambiance to the thrill of battle. Be it rushing through forests or trekking through snow the games sound effects are top notch and a great deal of love and care has gone into creating this game.
Overall the game is truly brilliant. The campaign can be lacking in time but the multiplayer more than makes up for it. Some would find this game a fantastic alternative for MAG, MW2 or Bioshock 2 and I can tell you that I have grown to love the game. Playing online with your friends is massive amounts of fun and the game relies more on teamwork rather than killstreaks (seeing as there is none) and makes your score at the end of a game feel m ore legitimate and you feel like you actually earned it. Overall I had tonnes of fun playing this game, be it from flying a helicopter to simply destroying a building single handedly I must admit that this game may be the best FPS out at this time.
Marks out of 10
Single Player Campaign: Can be found wanting at points but overall still a lot fun to play 7/10
Multiplayer: Fantastic alternative to other FPS and also provides hours and hours of enjoyable squad based fun 9/10
Gameplay: Fluid and Fun. EA really stepped up their game this time 9/10
Graphics and Sound: A beautifully detailed game with a brilliant soundtrack 9/10
Overall Score :8/10
