Negative Gamer Review: Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (PC)

We’ve been conditioned by games to expect certain things. Red barrels explode, dramatic music indicates approaching enemies, and a wooden shack can withstand a hundred RPGs without collapsing. I like to refer to this as “game logic.” Game logic dictates that if a tank is firing at you, it only makes sense to hide behind something. Even if that something is a two foot high wooden crate, because according to game logic, it should be impervious to all forms of attack. It isn’t so much the fact that this would be utter insanity in real life, it’s just that we as gamers have been conditioned to accept this kind of thing as normal. I suppose this is why I’ve come to love Bad Company 2 so much. For the first time in a while, I’ve had to relearn some core FPS principles. Bad Company 2 took a good portion of my previous FPS experience and threw it out the window. And I’ve been having a blast ever since.

DICE have been pushing the new Frostbite 2.0 engine as one of the main selling points for BC2. As opposed to the original Bad Company, where only walls and parts of roofs could be destroyed, Frostbite 2.0 allows entire buildings to be collapsed with enough damage. But with games like Red Faction: Guerrilla turning building destruction into a science, how does Bad Company 2 stack up?

The Characters Make The Story

I’m not sure if DICE wrote the story for the single player as a joke, but it’s about as boilerplate as they come. Evil Russians invade the US, they have a super weapon, and you’ve got to stop them. Of course, what Russian enemies would be incomplete without balaclavas and AK-47s? (Oh excuse me, I meant the “AEK Vintoya.”) However, I’m able to forgive most of the story shortcomings for the simple fact that your squadmates are some of the funniest, most well rounded characters I’ve ever seen in a shooter.

Instead of being mindless drones who run around yelling “Stay Frosty” and grunting, you’re presented with characters who have complex and entertaining personalities. They are funny some times, serious others. They show loyalty, courage and compassion; they even manage to poke subtle fun at Modern Warfare 2. The conversations about favorite scenes in Predator or favorite meals at Taco Bell never felt out of place, rather they made for an excellent complement to the gameplay. If you’re being shot at from all directions with snipers and RPGs, why wouldn’t you talk about the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders?

Single Player is Like Rehabilitation

I consider myself good at FPS games. I’ve put hundreds of hours into Counter Strike and Team Fortress 2. So it came as a surprise when I got my ass handed to me on the first level of Bad Company 2. I never realized how second nature some of my gameplay habits had become. “Shoot, duck behind cover to reload, shoot” was ingrained in my mind. In BC2, that situation plays out like “Shoot, duck behind co- no that just got destroyed.” You will die several times in Bad Company 2, but it never feels cheap or unnecessary. I soon learned to take advantage of the environment and realized what a powerful tool it is. If all my escape routes are cut off, I can just blow up the wall behind me and make a new one. If a machine gunner is entrenched in a window, I can just destroy the whole second floor.

The shooting itself is competent but not quite as sharp as more arena-type shooters like Modern Warfare 2 or Counter Strike, partly because the bullet mechanics are radically different. Bullets have weight, and don’t travel in a straight line. You have to account for distance in your shots and adjust your aim accordingly. Be prepared to be frustrated the first 20-30 minutes with a sniper rifle. The vehicle sections can also be frustrating at times since vehicles only have a certain amount of health and taking too much of a beating will get you killed, but once you get the hang of using the gun and driving the sections become relatively simple.

Vehicle controls are decent enough to control land vehicles, but try to fly a helicopter with anything but a joystick and you’ll crash within 20 seconds. However, in a game that has a history of people standing in line to use airplanes, I expect many Battlefield fans already own one. You never actually fly an aircraft in the single player, so if you’re only playing BC2 for single player, you need not worry.

When you are killed, be prepared to do a large part of the level over again. The checkpoint system in single player is horrendous, and I shut down the game several times out of disgust. If there is a 20 minute section where you have to defend a position, the only checkpoint will be at the beginning of the mission. So if you die at 19 minutes and 30 seconds, you get to do the entire section over again. I soon grew tired of defending the same satellite time after time because I died right before the end of the segment.

Why Everyone Really Bought This Game

While I was reasonably entertained by the single-player, the multiplayer is where Bad Company 2 really makes an impression. The ability to destroy walls and buildings opens up a whole array of new tactics and methods of flanking. I quickly came to dread the creaking sound buildings make right before they collapse on top of you. In addition, the ability to destroy cover helps prevent enemies from turning a building into a fortress. If you camp a window too much, someone is going to get pissed and bring the walls down around you. The combination of buildings collapsing, explosions, gunfire, and radio chatter makes for a sort of organized chaos that is as much fun to watch as it is to play.

The unlock system in BC2 is excellent, with just enough to keep you working towards that next gadget or weapon, but not a bloat that makes progress feels worthless. It can be difficult in the beginning, since you have to unlock the medkit and defibrillator for medic, repair drill for engineer, etc. But once your character is fully loaded, progression feels natural. You receive experience anytime you help your team; the top 3-5 players are usually the best team players rather than the best shot. This helps to ensure players actually work with their teammates, rather than picking the medic just for the machine gun or the engineer for the RPG.

There are currently 10 maps and 4 game types for players to enjoy. I’ve found Rush to be my favorite game type, being a good balance between tactics and chaos. Conquest can be frustrating due to the long wait to capture a flag. A pair of snipers can lock down a point completely between their rifles and mortar strikes. Squad Rush and Squad Deathmatch are good in concept, but due to some awkward auto-spawning, squads are separated for most of the game, ruining any chance of actual coordination. Spawning on your squad works when one member is alive, but when your whole team is dead, trying to reconvene in the middle of a fight is next to impossible.

Spawn problems aside, the multiplayer is an awesome experience, especially from a sensory level. I don’t want to say BC2 is more “realistic”, since games are anything but realistic when it comes to depicting actual warfare, but it definitely helps to immerse me when I see a tank shell have a real, visible effect against a building.

A few other things worth mentioning:

• I played Bad Company 2 on a Dual Core E8500 3.2ghz, 4 GB of DDR2 ram, a 9800GT, at a mix of medium and high settings, and rarely experienced a slow down.
• I finished the single player twice, first on medium, then on hard.
• The PC version had significant connection problems at launch, but most have now been resolved.
• DICE removed SecuROM DRM for Steam users with the latest patch, something to be commended in a market that is seeing the use of increasingly severe DRMs.
• I am level 17 on multiplayer at the time of this review.

While I expected the multiplayer to be a great experience, I was pleasantly surprised with the single-player too. DICE did a great job with character development, and if they can maintain that in the inevitable Bad Company 3 but work towards a more original storyline, they’ll have a great single-player experience on their hands. DICE says they are considering releasing an SDK for modders in the future, and with an engine as powerful as Frostbite, the potential for community supported content is immense.

You should play this game if…

…You enjoyed any of the previous Battlefield games, or if you’re looking for a great large-scale shooter.

Final Score

Weak story aside, the memorable characters and spot-on multiplayer make this an excellent addition to the Battlefield series.

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