Gamersmint Review: Battlefield Bad Company 2
EA’s DICE seem like a talented bunch. A couple of years ago they gave us Mirror’s Edge which while a great innovative concept didn’t really live up to the hype. Around the same time, they also released Battlefield: Bad Company, whose USP of completely destructible environments distinguished it from rival franchises. And then last year, DICE gave us the incredible downloadable title Battlefield 1943 whose large array of vehicles caused mayhem on the war front online. This year, with their multi-platform FPS – Battlefield Bad Company 2, DICE have created a perfect amalgamation of their previous experiments, mixing in just the right amounts of creativity, fun single-player and addictive multi-player campaigns.
The jovial foursome of the previous game make a return in Battlefield Bad Company 2, this time working as mercenaries aiding the US Army, with the player taking control of Private Preston Marlowe. The protagonists, although fairly one dimensional personality-wise, are well equipped with wit and sarcasm delivering gems of one-liners during the short 6-7 hour long single player campaign, the plot of which revolves around the same old cliché – starting out with minor assignments and uncovering much bigger conspiracies leading to global threat, as you go along. However, the story is interesting enough with twists and turns to be a reason to see the story campaign through.
Another great reason to indulge in the single player campaign is the gameplay itself. The game is split up in short chapters with fairly simple objectives such as reaching a particular location on the map or holding your ground successfully for a fixed amount of time. The AI of both, the squad-mates and the enemy soldiers, is fairly decent. Your fellow soldiers actually do assist you and even take charge at times effectively when you are swamped with enemies, who themselves are clever enough to take cover and try and flank you at times. The auto-assist for narrowing aim of the weapon increases in range as the difficulty is lowered ensuring even players new to the FPS genre on consoles are able to enjoy the game. Most of the chapters are also laced with fairly interesting vehicle controlling sequences; everything from racing quad bikes to single-handedly controlling mammoth tanks is a possibility. These vehicle sequences come fairly frequently in the campaign, and add to the overall feel of a true battlefield where your super-soldier participates more actively than just running on the group with an assault rifle.
But what really shines in Battlefield Bad Company 2 is the extensive use of destructible environments. If you can see it, you can probably blow it up completely in multiple ways aswell – shoot a rocket at the base, blow up a nearby fuel tank, drop a communication tower on it, etc. – making sure all kinds of objects you encounter in the game’s exotic locales turn into a pile of debris in mere seconds. The resulting lack of a permanent cover adds new dimensions to the gameplay where the player can’t just follow the standard shoot-and-duck guerrilla warfare methods, because in doing so, you can be assured that the wall of concrete you are taking cover against will not last for long.
Moreover, all these elements which make the single player campaign interesting, make the multi-player experience incredible, and that is the real reason which makes this title a must buy. There are 4 multiplayer modes – Rush, where squad mates either have to defend or attack communication stations spread over huge maps, Conquest, a mode similar to typical capture-the-flag scenario, Squad Deathmatch, a score based battle, and Squad Rush, an 8-player array of Rush games. Having 4 classes – medic, engineer, assault, recon – each having their own charms and maps which spawn over a variety of different environments, the 24 players battles of Battlefield Bad Company 2 are extremely engaging. Thrilling moments such as running over infantry with tanks, sniping unsuspecting helicopter pilots or having a building come down on a camped sniper are pretty common and make the multiplayer aspect of the game one of the best implemented ones in recent times.
Reminding me of one of the sliding gun-rack scene from ‘The Matrix’, the collection of weapons in BFBC2 is mind-blowing. There are rifles, sniper-rifles, sub-machine guns, light machine guns, shotguns, pistols, grenade/rocket launchers, explosives and the trusty commando knife, not to mention special weapons such as the tracer dart pistol, air strike laser designator and the weapons mounted on the vehicles. Each gun has its own set of unique statistics consisting of damage, accuracy, range, capacity and fire-rate, and finding the best among the whole lot is just a matter of personal preference. Picking up some points from the Call of Duty franchise, progression in multiplayer unlocks new items and abilities, such as hitting a button to mark enemies and having your entire squadron camped on their behinds. The latest iteration of the Battlefield franchise truly does define online warfare.
The visuals are fairly stunning most of the time. The lush greenery employed at times looks realistic, the characters look fairly well detailed and the physics used in the destruction is mind-blowing. There is nothing like watching an entire 3-storey building completely come crashing down right in front of your eyes. However it has its fair amount of glitches like moments where dead enemies go into violent seizures and your squad mates appear suddenly in front of you out of thin air. The music is barely noticeable and the sound effects complement the destruction well and add another layer of reality to the game, especially multiplayer. The single-player dialogue delivery with massive dollops of sarcasm is also pretty well done.
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