Developer: DICE
Publisher: EA
Release Date: Out Now
Players: Solo campaign, 2-24 online multiplayer
Words By:
In Bad Company 2 you again play as unlikely hero Preston Marlowe, one member of a four-man squad that consists of Sergeant Samuel D. Redford (Sarge), Sweetwater (tech & communications) and Haggard, the explosives expert. You and your Bad Company are sent all over the planet to hunt down a device that’s thought to be under the control of a Kirelenko, a returning character from Bad Company 1. This device is thought to be a WMD codenamed ‘Aurora’, a weapon first discovered in a playable intro mission set on a Japanese-held island during WWII.
As with the original Bad Company, BC2 is a great looking game, and the latest version of DICE’s Frostbite game engine seems fill the screen with more action and to throw more particles around than any other at the moment. Combined with amazingly atmospheric battle sounds (the echoing cracks of gunshot, booming explosions, the yells of the enemy) this makes BC2 one of the most thrilling FPS experiences yet. But, if you played Bad Company 1, you’ll soon realize that the maps that were absolutely sprawling wide open sandboxes have been trimmed down to narrow corridors, and although there are a couple of wide open locations and vehicles feature a lot more than in say, Modern Warfare 2, the gameplay seems to have been modified to be much closer to Infinity Ward’s game. This means that even on some of the bigger maps if you stray off the beaten track by more than a few yards you’ll get an intensely annoying “Turn back! You are leaving the Combat Area!” and a 10-second countdown for you to return to the set path. It feels like you’re getting a slapped wrist for daring to explore and weakens the game’s appeal considerably, although there are still plenty of collectable weapons to hunt for as well as hidden M-Com stations. There are some vehicles to drive (most notably a mission in which you get to control an M1 Abrams main battle tank) but these are few and far between and the narrower maps mean there’s little need for the extensive exploration that the first game required. A couple of vehicle levels play more like races or Call of Duty-style ‘ride-along-and-shoot’ set pieces than actual combat arenas (there’s even a quad bike level that plays just like the skidoo level in MW2). You don’t even get to pilot a helicopter this time, just ride along in a Black Hawk gunship and use the side-mounted mini gun, a mission that could literally have been an add-on for EA’s Modern Warfare 2.
The mostly-unpopular health injector from BC1 has gone in favour of the Call of Duty-style ‘take cover if damaged to recover health’ system. Unlike many I didn’t mind jabbing myself with a hypo to regain health but the new system works better, and the threat and damage indicator (red splatters the screen) is much more effective than MW2’s weird somebody’s sprayed cherryade on the screen-looking effort.
There are a few visual glitches, shadows sometimes de-resolve into a steppy mess, and the horizontal tearing, although significantly improved from Bad Company 1, still rears its ugly head from time to time. There are also a few poor instances of enemies clipping through walls, but they die in a seemingly unlimited number of different ways, take cover when put under fire and are usually fairly accurate when shooting at you, without ever resorting to cheap tricks like CoD4’s “grenade rain” even on the toughest ‘Hardened’ difficulty setting.
Bad Company 2 uses the latest incarnation of DICE’s superb Frostbite game engine, with its remarkable physics and destructible EVERYTHING. Incredibly even more stuff seems to blow up now, and those of you used to taking cover behind a stone wall in Modern Warfare 2 and feeling safe need to change their mindset—if you try that against an RPG-toting enemy, attack chopper or tank then the next time you look up and check there’ll be no wall there anymore! This of course, also works the other way around and enemies that use windows to snipe out of and then duck for cover are no longer safe, a swift grenade from your underslung launcher or a rocket will remove the wall and probably the cowering bad guy too. With the new Frostbite Destruction 2.0 game engine the damage and destruction you can cause is truly amazing to behold...
This really is a game for the frustrated demolition experts out there, as every vehicle, building, tree and any other object you may come across is almost certainly destructible, at least to some extent. Buildings can be virtually gutted if not demolished, meaning that should you come across a village with a sneaky sniper in a window you don’t need to carefully inch your way up and out-snipe him or flank him, you simply blow the building he’s in apart with a grenade or other heavy weapon and leave him exposed to your squad’s short arms fire. It makes a nice change to be able to use the power of modern weapons as they are really used without crawling on your belly for hundreds of yards only to pop your head up and get it blown off. There’s an excellent selection of weapons available throughout the game (you can carry 2 weapons of your choice), and unlike some games you can always pick up downed enemies’ weapons, if for no other reason than to try them out. Regular weapon drops and the fact that the locations of collectable weapons are marked on the map means you’ll never be stuck with a duff weapon set or be low on ammo for long.
Bad Company’s sense of humour and the banter between the squad has been reined in a tad to reflect the more serious mission objective, but you’ll still get more than a few genuine laughs from Sweetwater and Haggard, especially if you listen to their conversation during the rare down times in the game. As with the first game this light-hearted approach to war might stick in some people’s craw, but personally I liked it, the banter is extremely believable, often spouted for bravado, and it keeps the game light from start to finish, meaning it never gets too sombre or po-faced, unlike most of the competition. The squad AI seems to vary hugely, from acting like Arnie, Bruce and Sly (they shoot enemies before you even see them) to The Three Stooges (they walk right past enemies and leave you to fight them alone). But in the main they really feel like a squad, and only the lack of a co-op mode sullies what is a short (5 to 6 hours) but varied and enjoyable campaign story.
DICE have really stepped up the quality in the multiplayer mode since Bad Company 1 that whilst fun was always a rather unpolished and slightly flaky and laggy online experience to me. In BC2 there are four game modes, the most popular of which seems to be ‘Rush’. Rush has one team of up to 12 players trying to destroy the other team’s M-Com stations (basically the same electronic gizmo cases as are ‘hidden’ in the story mode). The team will have two M-Coms’ to defend initially (Alpha and Beta), and when/if these are destroyed the defenders retreat back to the next base and defend the next pair of M-Coms for their life, or until the attacking teams pre-ordained number of ‘tickets’ hold out. The M-Coms can be destroyed either by approaching them and setting their self-destruct sequence (which can be deactivated by the defending team), or by shooting or blowing them up with grenades, remote charges and well-aimed fire from a tank or attack chopper, or even by collapsing the building in which they are placed on top of them and destroying them indirectly (collapsing buildings also kill anyone caught inside). It’s a dynamic and exciting game mode and the maps are superbly designed, they mostly play like long ‘corridors of battle’ which funnel and focus the conflict well without ever feeling too narrow or confined. With all but a couple of maps there’s plenty of room for vehicles and the better your team does the more vehicles will be available.
The second main game mode is called ‘Conquest’—it’s basically Capture the Flag in which players try to hold flags for as long as the enemy tickets last. Every kill makes the enemy lose a ticket, and enemy tickets constantly decrease when a team controls the majority of the flags on the map. More vehicles unlock and spawn as control points are held.
Squad Deathmatch is a mode for up to four squads. A sole Infantry Fighting Vehicle spawns on the map and having it in your team’s possession can make for runs of kills and domination, but if the team doesn’t protect it, tag enemies and repair it then it can become a deathtrap. The first squad to score fifty kills wins.
Squad Rush is similar to Rush but puts a squad of four players up against another squad of four on smaller, tighter maps with just two M-Com stations per game. The smaller maps, lack of vehicles and bottlenecks make for a lot of intense fighting and make the game feel a lot more like CoD4 or Modern Warfare 2.
The Bad Company 2 online multiplayer mode features an addictive promotional ranking system and four different classes to play as; Assault, Engineer, Recon (sniper) and Medic. Players can choose from a set of weapon load outs before each spawn, and you’ll probably want to try them all out as they all have more powerful weapons or fun or useful perks (such as defibrillator paddles to revive recently downed team mates or a remotely-piloted UAV) that unlock as you earn more Experience Points. These XP can be achieved in number of different ways, whether it be simply killing enemies, healing or reviving teammates, repairing vehicles, or 'tagging' a tank to make it easier for friendly anti-armour elements to destroy. Extra points are awarded to players helping their own squad of four, and this encourages squad-based gameplay and communication, something sadly missing from most MW2 sessions.
As ever a Battlefield game wouldn’t be a Battlefield game unless vehicles played a large part in the multiplayer proceedings, and that’s a good thing as far as I’m concerned, although I know some people fed on a diet of Call of Duty feel an online FPS shouldn’t need them. Zooming around in any of the 15 armoured vehicles, ATV quad bikes, attack boats and even choppers is great fun, and still plays a huge role in the game, but they really seem to be well balanced and nobody is going to be invulnerable or undetected for too long thanks to the new ‘tagging’ system. This works by a player pressing the ‘Back’ button when they spot an enemy, this will put a small red icon above the enemy’s head for a few seconds, marking them for all team mates. Tagging can be done in combat or even after death, as the game shows you who killed you can tag him so your team can spot him and wreak revenge for you. If you don’t have an enemy in your sights the ‘Back’ button also doubles up as a ‘yell’ for more ammo or medical attention.
Bad Company 2 is a highly impressive game, at times throwing so many particles around that you literally can’t see what’s going on or where you’re going. I initially thought DICE had even managed to lock the horizontal tearing (that Bad Company 1 exhibited so badly) off but it still rears its ugly head from time to time when the on-screen action gets really hectic, or the game engine struggles to draw everything the massive draw distances require. The sound is simply amazing, quite the best in-game sound effects yet produced for a war game, and adds immeasurably to the experience. The multiplayer is where DICE obviously spent a lot of time though, and it shows; a slightly disappointing campaign is made up for by an addictive, progressive, rewarding (and most of all) fun online mode that is better than just about anything out there right now—even if you’ve previously shied away from online multiplayer games I urge you to try it. If you don’t play online games then the solo game probably only ranks as about a 7 out of 10, but the online game sets a new benchmark. It’s no coincidence that EA have made DICE responsible for the forthcoming Medal of Honor’s multiplayer component, it’s sure to be a massive, spectacular hit.
Best Bits
- Raises the level of destruction to new heights - Amazing explosions! - Booming weapon FX and ambient sound - Superbly designed levels and MP maps - The BC sense of humour - Plenty of weapons - Benchmark multiplayer
Worst Bits
- Some graphical glitches and pop-up - Narrower campaign maps and distinct lack of vehicular activity compared to Bad Company 1 - Why still no co-op campaign mode? - Some dopey AI
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