{"id":5678,"date":"2010-03-29T19:59:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-29T17:59:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T22:00:00","slug":"bad-company-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/reviews\/5678-bad-company-2","title":{"rendered":"Bad Company 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Battlefield franchise should need very little introduction to readers. Since the 2002 release of Battlefield 1942, the franchise has always been the one to which gamers turn when they want large-scale, team-based combat. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 expands on this winning formula through the addition of some interesting new dynamics – such as destructible buildings.<\/p>\n

The Technical Stuff<\/strong><\/p>\n

The biggest change, however, from the preceding PC versions of Battlefield is the use of the Frostbite engine. Although the engine has been used previously in the Battlefield 1943 and Bad Company 1 console releases, Bad Company 2 is the first DICE PC game to make use of it. And I’m genuinely glad they chose to use it. If you are in the fortunate position of being able to run the game on maximum detail level, you will be rewarded with beautifully detailed textures, realistic sand and snow, photo-realistic explosions and beautiful environments. The version of the engine used in Bad Company 2 also allows for realistic bullet drop simulation, as well as fully destructible buildings.<\/p>\n

This has a real impact on the ingame dynamic, since that wall you’re taking cover behind can be knocked down by an explosive, not only killing you, but denying the cover of that wall to your team-mates.<\/p>\n

Despite the hefty visuals, and the intense physics calculations, this game appears to scale well across a variety of machines, and it should prove possible to find a happy combination of visual quality and adequate FPS. It should be noted, however, that this game loves multi-core CPUs, and appears to have been coded to take specific advantage of quad-core CPUs. Although by no means a minimum requirement, the addition of a quad-core CPU will almost always result in a large FPS boost in this game.<\/p>\n

However, while I may laud the quality of the visuals, the sounds within the game deserve even more attention. To say they immerse you in the game is an understatement. The gunfire sounds remarkably realistic, with the sharp, high crack of the assault rifles, the deep thunder of the .50 calibre heavy machine gun, and the earth-shattering thump of a 120mm tank cannon. The audio genuinely makes you feel as if you are in a war zone, especially when fire erupts sporadically at different flags or bomb sites far from you. One of the better aspects of the audio engine is how the music fades away when gunfire erupts near you, which pushes you even more into he moment, as well as removing the distracting mashup of music and ambient sound you get in most games.<\/p>\n

The Single Killer – errr Player<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whilst the game is very accomplished in a technological sense, many a technologically accomplished game has ultimately been nothing more than a mediocre title owing to a lack of high-quality gameplay and\/or poor storyline. I’m happy to report that that is not the case for BC2. Indeed, I was actually pleasantly surprised to find such a polished single player campaign in the game. The storyline itself may not be the most original around, but it serves as a vessel to highlight the characters in the game. The basis behind the storyline is that the Russians are bent on taking over the world (where have we heard that before…?) and are attempting to recover a super-weapon developed by the Japanese during World War 2. Indeed, the first mission of the campaign involves a group of special operations troopers extracting the Japanese developer of the super weapon from Japanese-held territory. This mission forms a backdrop to the story as experienced by Bad Company 2 during the remainder of the single player.<\/p>\n

Now, while I felt that the storyline was perhaps rather bland, the same cannot be said of the characters. Marlowe (your character), Sweetwater (the geeky tech guy), Haggard (the swearing, hardcore explosives guy) and Sgt. Redford (squad leader and all around ass-kicker) are all uniquely memorable in the pantheon of FPS characters. I’m not entirely sure what it is about them that makes them so memorable, but even weeks after playing through the single player, I can still remember quotes from each of them.<\/p>\n

Although the BC2 single player doesn’t have the movie-esque quality of Modern Warfare 2, I feel that it more than makes up for it with the fantastic characters and the greater freedom to complete mission objectives. Ultimately though, coming across such a polished single player campaign in a game which essentially focuses on the multiplayer aspect was a very pleasant surprise, and certainly adds value to the experience.<\/p>\n

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The Battlefield<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now onto the real raison d’être of Bad Company 2 – the multiplayer. The game follows the multiplayer formula laid down by previous Battlefield titles – large scale, squad based combat with vehicles. This type of combat provides a very nice alternative to the MP FPS leader of the past few years; the CoD series. Where CoD has a very heavy emphasis on an individual’s skill, and reaction times, BC2 rewards clever team play and tactical planning.<\/p>\n

One of the most important aspects of the team play is having a well balanced squad. Every class in BC2 has a use, and should a squad be lacking a good mix of the classes, it is likely that that squad will find it very difficult to complete objectives. The assault class is fantastic for taking down enemy troops and taking and holding objectives, and also performs the team role of resupplying the other classes (and themselves) with ammunition. The attachable grenade launcher can make quick work of both walls and squads of enemy soldiers, and towards the later levels, can be substituted for an attachable shotgun, which is devastating in close quarters.<\/p>\n

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The recon troop, on the other hand, is particularly good at spotting the movement of enemy troops from outside their effective range, and calling in the troop movements for the other classes to deal with (or call down a hail of 60mm mortar rounds on the enemy’s heads). Equally though, a competent recon trooper can decimate an entire squad by themselves, through careful application of the “headshot principle”. One of the other jobs of the recon trooper is to deal with the counter-sniper aspect of warfare. This can be particularly interesting as one often only has a few seconds to estimate the range to an opposing sniper, adjust for the bullet drop and fire. One slightly disappointing aspect of the sniper class is the general inability to kill with a single shot to the upper chest. One would feel that a single 7.62mm-equivalent round to the chest of an opponent would either kill them or severely injure them to the point of combat ineffectiveness.<\/p>\n

The third available class is the engineer, the owner of the big “boomsticks” in BC2. Of course, while one of their major roles is to destroy opposing vehicles, they also have the repair gun which is used to repair friend and abandoned vehicles. One of the favourite tactics with this class is to run along behind a friendly vehicle repairing it consistently as it takes damage. Of course, should the vehicle reverse, you may be in a bit of trouble… One slightly incongruous aspect of the engineer is that their primary weapon is silenced. So not only do they have the potential to make the biggest bangs with their boomsticks, but they also have the potential to sneakily take down a squad with silenced weapons.<\/p>\n

The final class is the, frankly, most powerful class in the game. The medic has the health packs, the reviving shock paddles AND the LMGs. A competent medic can entirely alter the course of the game for a single squad, and potentially the team, since by reviving dead team-mates, not only are they immediately fighting fit again, but your tickets don’t decrease. Additionally, the LMG can make very short work of exposed enemy soldiers, although it must be acknowledged that the LMGs genuinely cannot hit the broad side of a barn when firing while moving.
Of course, the different classes of trooper exist to complete objectives, which vary according to the game type. Within BC2, there are four primary game types, namely: Rush, Conquest, Squad Deathmatch, and Squad Rush. The objective in the Rush game types is to either attack or defend so-called “M-COM” stations (bomb planting locations).<\/p>\n

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The attackers have to destroy a pair of stations per sector on the map, until they eventually fight their way to last ditch defense point, and on destruction of those stations, win the map. Whilst the attackers have limited respawn “tickets” (lives), the defenders have unlimited tickets. Consequently, the attackers cannot wear the defenders down ticket wise, and are forced to rush the bomb sites to destroy them. The Conquest game type is essentially the Capture-The-Flag gametype, where teams have to hold the flag points until the enemies tickets give out. Killing an enemy reduces the tickets by one, so the presence of good medics on both sides can prolong the games to an almost painful extent.<\/p>\n

The Squad Deathmatch involves squads of four individuals fighting against each other in a race to see which squad can accumulate 50 kills first. There is a single Infantry Fighting Vehicle on the map for the squads to fight over. One point that needs to be raised about Squad Deathmatch is the apparently poor quality of the netcode. When there are 16 players on this game type, the lag can become almost unbearable. On the other hand, Squad Rush pits two squads of four players against each other in a quick and brutal rush contest. From a personal perspective, every time I have played squad rush, the squads have been composed of four medics, which just emphasizes the power of the class.<\/p>\n

Now it has to be said, that while the multiplayer is exceptionally good, there are a few niggles. The first of which, I have already touched on – the overpowered medic class. The second niggle with multiplayer is the sheer number of bullets required to kill enemies. Whether this is an issue with hit detection, or simply a case of balance within the game, it can be very annoying to have to empty an entire clip into a person to kill them. The third niggle with the multiplayer is the truly awful server\/friend browser. While DICE has been making progress with the server browser recently, the sheer fact that they released such an unpolished interface is incredibly frustrating for end-users. The final niggle with the multiplayer (and actually, the entire game) is the damnably stupid updater. Seriously EA\/Dice, release stand alone patches, so your user base doesn’t have to re-download 2gb + of patches every time they reinstall the game.<\/p>\n

The Final Push<\/strong><\/p>\n

So, in conclusion, Bad Company 2 does many, many things right: The graphics, the physx, the sound, the surprisingly polished single player campaign and the thoroughly enjoyable multiplayer. Yes, there are issues with the MP aspect, but given past DICE\/EA experience, the title will be very well supported with patches and map releases. For those of you who are looking for a satisfying alternative to the regular MP FPS fare, Bad Company 2 should feature very highly on your “want list”. Now I’m going off to kill more people, buildings and vehicles…<\/p>\n

Reviewed on PC<\/em><\/p>\n

Gamestate’s Bad Company 2 video review<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Discuss Bad Company 2<\/a> in the forums<\/p>\n\n\t\t