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Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - Review
EA have been hyping up Battlefield: Bad Company 2 as a viable competitor to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, but regardless of how good Bad Company 2 really is, the real test will be conducted at the tills as something that only the buying public can decide.
Bad Company 2 offers a genuine alternative to Call of Duty MW2, and DICE has made sure that both the single-player campaign and multiplayer aspects of the game are equally substantial and worthwhile.
Bad Company's single-player story takes its cue directly from the previous game, returning to the team of four military miscreants.
The same snappy banter and one-liners between Marlowe, Sweetwater, Haggard and Sarge thankfully remain intact, meaning that there's more personality than you'd normally find in your average first-person shooter.
When it is not dealing in explosive action and macho dialogue, Bad Company 2 manages to slot in some very impressive set-pieces, such as dashing between houses and flammable barrels, or sending in laser guided airstrikes on a derelict village.
And while these moments stand out as involving and memorable, it is the robust first-person shooter stuff between the set-pieces that Bad Company 2 still does best, meaning that there is never a dull moment as you are either racing around a cliff edge in a jeep, rolling through enemy units in a tank or silently crawling through leafy undergrowth, all resulting in the game's interest curve never dropping.
The core gameplay mechanics remain mostly unchanged since the last Bad Company, although this time around they have sensibly removed the clumsy weapon and item select system, replacing it with a more logical control set-up.
Health is now also regenerated rather than boosted by an adrenaline shot, which frees up the front trigger buttons for grenade throwing and melee knife thrusts.
Visuals and sound design are outstanding throughout, and although the graphical excellence never quite measures up to that of Modern Warfare 2, the updated engine makes for expansive environments and a level of destruction far beyond that of any other first-person shooter.
Focusing the objectives by making the campaign more linear is actually beneficial, keeping the experience tight, cutting out the aimless wandering to make the action feel more direct, although for those who like to explore, there are plenty of hidden satellite uplinks to locate and destroy, and a whole list of collectibles to track down.
Two weapons can now be carried at any one time. Being able to juggle weapons mid-mission unlocks immense opportunities for experimenting with different approaches towards objectives, which usually involves launching rockets and grenades through walls or other obstacles.
Either way, blowing things up never gets old. It is to the makers credit that Bad Company 2 is made up almost entirely of entertainingly overblown action movie-style sequences like these that happily sit alongside a well-written story.
Vehicle sections are just as impactful and break up the usual running and gunning with your team, as well as occasional blasts on the minigun of the helicopter gunship that often helps extract you and your team at certain intervals.
Never quite as absorbing as you would hope, the story does a good job of propelling the action along at a steady pace, injecting a bit of variety when it is required.
As a result, Bad Company's single-player proves far more compelling than its predecessor's, and proves to be much more than just preparation for the multiplayer portion of the game, which is undoubtedly what most players will be buying the BC2 for.
Multiplayer is comprised of several modes, including the return of Gold Rush, now simply titled 'Rush', and Conquest. Squad Rush offers a smaller, more tightly focused version of Rush with less players, while the usual standard deathmatch and team deathmatch modes are exactly what you'd expect.
Bad Company 2's multiplayer skirmishes are every bit as enjoyable as they were in the original, if not more so.
Bad Company 2 is a 1st class FPS, let down only by odd inconsistencies in the destruction and limited customisation options in multiplayer. These minor shortcomings aside however, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is pure gaming gold and as such has more than a fair chance of eclipsing the might of Modern Warfare 2.
9 out of 10
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