Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is developer DICE's second try at bringing Battlefield to consoles after making the series a smashing success on PC. The first game in the Bad Company series introduced us to our heroes (the men of Bad Company if you can believe it) and introduced us to the amazing procedural damage engine known as the Frostbite Engine. The first game came off as little more then a tech demo as the already paper thin story was marred by the stereotypical cast of relatively unlikeables.
The second one however is looking to take the crown from Modern Warfare and it makes no bones about it. This sort of video game rivalry hasn't been seen since the days when "Sega does what Ninten-don't," was the mantra. BC2 picks up almost exactly where the first BC left off with our heroes stranded, wondering what to do next. Thankfully the writers over at DICE know what to do and the story that unfolds comes off as actually pretty good (for the type of game it is).
While the game itself does fine at standing on its own merits, the reliance on everyone having played Modern Warfare 2 for a lot of the fan factor sort of leaves me with a weird feeling. It's one thing for a dev to make little fan-service nods across a couple of games, it just seems weird to me when game characters are taking pot shots at the competing series ("They'll just send in some pussy ass Special Ops with heartbeat sensors on their guns!"). Having said that, I must comment that I think the story in BC2 was far better especially as a sequel than that of MW2, if for no other reason than it flowed properly with a beginning, middle, and end. Although the ending (spoiler-free) does suffer from a bad case of Halo 2 syndrome in that it seemingly comes in to interrupt the good part. As always, I consider that cheap and poor form.
The gameplay itself is pretty standard shooter fare with the addition of the aforementioned Frostbite Engine adding a whole new dynamic to the battlescape. It really adds to the mayhem of a big battle when you can't really just duck and hide to reload and expect your cover to stay there the whole time. Sure this leads to a lot of deaths, but I think it's worth the added realism. It kind of saddens me though that there are still some parts right in your path that are indestructible. Some amount of indestructibility is to be expected, but at times it just got ridiculous. At one point I was told to use explosives to make a path and after wasting a bunch of grenades and rockets, I discovered that the explosives they were talking about were a stack of barrels that I could just shoot. Still, the engine more than pulls its weight and makes for a really nice selling point.
I can't help but feel that the game could have gone through QA a little longer though. There were some really weird bugs that weren't game breaking, but really off-putting. There were times when the squad would stop and talk about really off-topic things and the quality of voice acting would suddenly shoot up. My guess is that whatever caused the guys to get stuck also triggered some cut dialog. That, or those parts are supposed to be that way. There was one genuine bug though in which the members of the BC squad simply weren't present in a video in which they were talking and interacting with other people. Again, things continued as if nothing had happened, but the damage was done.
I know that many of you readers will want to hear all about the multiplayer, but I fear I may not be one who could adequately review that part. The reason is that I've become convinced that there must be a bunch of it that I'm missing. For a game looking to take the top spot, there can't possibly be so little to the multiplayer. Sure the modes are fun, but are there really only four of them? Also out of the five or six times I've tried the multiplayer, I have only seen two maps. Where are all the maps? I'll keep dying my way through that for a while and if I strike gold, perhaps I'll review that part separately.
Does Battlefield: Bad Company 2 take the crown as top war shooter? For single player, I'd say so. Even some areas of multiplayer are better. And especially given the tenuous state of the competitor, I think we may have a new champion.
Is it a good game? Yeah, it's good stuff. Go get it. And stay frosty (yeah, they say that too).
Played on Xbox 360 on Hard.
1 comment:
Looks like a good review. I'm glad the campaign is better this time around, and that the new destruction engine works well.
I'd be curious to know a couple other multiplayer details though. Do the vehicles add a lot compared to something like cod mod 2, or do they just seem gimicky? And is there any offline multiplayer? Those would convince me to get this.
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