Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Digital Illusions CE (DICE)
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
I’m going to start by saying that I’ve never played the original Battlefield Bad Company. I’ve never really paid much attention to the Battlefield series, especially considering I didn’t really get into PC gaming until about two years ago. But after all the hype, all the “This is worlds better than Modern Warfare 2”, I broke down and ordered the Limited Edition from Amazon.
In comes Battlefield Bad Company 2. The campaign, while short (about six hours on Normal), is a blast. There were a few instances where I just sat back and grinned. Buildings crashing down on enemies, that time when I first came across the jungle mission which looked amazing, or the BANG from my sniper rifle which sounded like thunder…deadly thunder. Plenty of moments to put a smile on your face, I loved it.
Multiplayer is another story. It can be fun, but often isn’t. There are four classes to choose from; Assault, Engineer, Medic, and Recon. Each provides a variety of weapons and attachments which should please most people. The problem, however, is that just about every person on your 12 person team wants to snipe for some unknown reason. “Screw the objective, I’m sitting back and sniping!” What makes this a problem is that you can only communicate with up to three other people (in your squad) at any given time. So there’s no way of asking/telling your teammates (outside of your squad) to get their ass’s in gear and start capping points, or moving up, etc.
But not all is lost. See that guy behind that wall? Yeah…you can destroy it, and hopefully the guy camping behind it if he’s close enough. The destructible environments in Bad Company 2 are amazing. Gone are the days when a thin, wooden door can withstand 100’s of bullets and the person behind it takes no damage. Knowing that you can take a guy out from half way across the map while he’s reloading behind a crate is extremely satisfying. Add some fairly realistic bullet physics, like having to aim slightly above the enemies head when sniping, and you have the potential for some fun. But it all comes back to the lack of communication with teammates. An entire team of snipers won’t help you if you’re pinned at your spawn. Add in some lengthy respawn times and you have a game that goes from fun to frustrating.
One of the ONLY redeeming qualities Battlefield Bad Company 2 brings to the table is the ability to spawn on your teammates. You can have a team of morons, but if you’re with a good squad of friends/players, you can still pull off a win and/or have some fun. I hate to sound like I’m ragging on the game; there are some redeeming qualities, but there are also some not-so-redeeming qualities that end up leaving a bad taste in ones mouth.
Overall, Battlefield Bad Company 2 is not a bad game. I encourage people to at least give it a rent, if for no other reason than to experience the singleplayer campaign. As such, this may not be my favorite cup of tea, but I’ll still drink it…I just won’t always like it.
- Gameplay: The shooting mechanics are solid, tight without requiring impossible precision. Practice definitely pays off.
- Graphics: The game looks great, both online and off. Vibrant colors jump out at you and the backdrops are amazing. There are some moments where the framerate drops and textures get a little…not-so-pretty, but those are few and far in-between.
- Sound: The voice acting is OK, but it’s the guns, the bullets, the destruction all around you stands out and impresses. The ambiance and atmosphere is some of the best I’ve experienced in any game to date.
- Multiplayer: Slower-paced, but a nice change which can sometimes be a pain in the ass. A few more multiplayer modes would have been nice. Being able to communicate with more than three people would be nice…
Final Score: 6.9 out of 10.
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I agree with your points on multi-player UNLESS you are playing with your friends. If your a loner and don’t play with your friends in squads then the multi-player isn’t special. However if you do the ability to do so much more as a group makes it worth while.
I play with friends most of the time, that’s the only way to actually get somewhere with this game. But I’ll often jump on early in the morning or mid afternoon when friends are elsewhere and that’s when this game really becomes frustrating.
Those snipers you were talking about were probably were probably all Lonewolf MW2 players that think more about their K/D than they do about winning. What they don’t know is that once all the points are taken you only have one spawn which literally means rape for anyone on the losing team. It’s seriously all about teamwork…
Oh, I think rush is a pretty shit mode unless your the attackers.
You can talk to your entire team ;x
There are 3 “groups” of people you can talk to
Your squad by pressing L
Your Team by pressing K
Everyone by pressing J
Also the pacing of it depends entirely on your teammates. Sounds like you were playing quite a bit with several retards.
Sometimes you can get on a good team and just steam roll over the other team, or have a good tight close battle the entire time.
Telling all those snipers not to snipe wont help btw. One way to make them more useful is make sure you mark every enemy you come across by aiming at them and pressing Q. Puts a nice big red triangle above the enemies head and snipers will normally shoot that target. Also Just join a squad that has no snipers in it. 1 squad can easily take any mcom station if you are playing Rush.
You can use C4, or rockets or any explosion really to destroy mcom stations, or the building that houses it. So if your team sucks too much to push forward and arm the mcom station, just kill it yourself with c4 =p
Consoles don’t support channels like the PC does. It’s 4 people, that’s it. It’s beyond ridiculous.
In fact, I must say that I have been enjoying the multiplayer immensely. I play 4v4 squad rush and it is easily the most satisfying multiplayer experience I have ever had on a console. This game attracts level headed individuals… with headsets. I am simply amazed at how many people I have discovered playing bfbc2 that I would consider good folk ready to play like a team. When you have 3 or 4 ppl talking back and forth the game plays like a dream, and this happens quite regularly. Compared to KZ2, and (I imagine, because I haven’t played the multiplayer) modern warfare 2, where ppl just do their own thing, bfbc2 comes up a big winner in terms of cooperation. I go in and I actually communicate with people and the communication works damnit! Spotting someone and informing your teammates is invaluable, because in hardcore mode (the only mode I play) it takes only a few bullets to kill someone, meaning whoever is seen first usually dies first, so knowledge really is power (plus there’s no radar, obviously necessitating more communication). In short, if you are a gamer that like to feel part of a team, this game is for you. The more you play the more you will notice little things that make the game both realistic and satisfying, and this includes the realization that sniper fanatic squads can be overcome easily with teamwork.
This game is one of the first fps’s that I have been so passionate about defending, and its all due to the fact that now, when I join a game and say hey whats up, I don’t get a static filled response with lame music in the background becasue someone has no courtesy, I get a few hellos and we jump right into the action, speaking and acting more like a team than in any other fps I have ever played. Once again, if you get satisfaction from such online exchanges as: “I see someone coming up the left side through the trees”, “Got it, I’m circling around behind him, stay at the bombsite and watch the road” then this game is absolutely for you.
I have been playing for about a week and have now amassed a friend list of 5 daily players all in my timezone that like to play as a team and just today three of us single handedly bombed 8 seperate locations and won a REGULAR rush game (because we were tired of the inconsisistently full squad rush games, which is a legitimate complaint) by ourselves and you know what? We had even more fun introducing a few more players into our midst.
I don’t want to turn this into a counter-review, but the experience I’ve had with bdbc2 is just flat out great now that I’ve made my online buddy friends, it just doesn’t get any better for me, I love online teamwork and it doesn’t seem like its out there with other games, not to mention the fact that bfbc2 has great graphics, a great feel (easy aiming, weapons feel good) and loads of upgrades online that make every finished round just a a bit more rpg-esque enjoyable.
Wish I could say more! Buy this game if you love team work and add me! psn: ace_ross
I’d love to pop in and hear a few hellos…but I can only talk to the people on my squad, which is a max of 4 people (3 to actually talk to). I’m working on a revision for the review. I want to highlight the fact that this game CAN be fun with friends, but it still frustrates me to no end that DICE didn’t open up the communication more. Seriously, 4 people?
yeah I hear ya, I guess because i only play 4v4 that isnt a problem for me. When I did play reg. rush I found that the level of coordination me and my two other dudes had was sufficient to take every objective wtih no problem… In fact, I think what makes the game work so well is that it doesn’t get too confused because you can communicate with only 3 others as opposed to 15. Let’s face it, console online gaming communities have still not reached the level where a team of 16 can act as one… but 4? I’ve seen it happen, but I would expect that to open up chat too much is to expect too much of the average gamer. The reason squad chat works is because it’s natural and doesn’t take a whole lot of brain power to get a lot of use out of it. Its not hard to keep track of 3 other people, you’re always around eachother and so you don’t need to be too specific about what you say, so when I say ‘behind us’ it’s generally understood what I mean.
However, to offer a counterpoint to my own, I would have to say that just one sentence or two being able to be uttered on global team chat would make a big difference sometimes. Being able to say ‘we’re rushing the bomb site, cover us’ to your entire team would definitely yield some positive results and just heighten your teams awareness for a minute or two… That would be a good idea, maybe not the ability to speak to individual squads, just to have the option to go on global team chat for a second or two, just to give general updates on where you are and what you plan to do so if others are able they can coordinate among themslves to complement your strategy. It may sound like I’m being a bit cautious on how much communication should be allowed, but I just don’t want to mess with a good thing. I’ve found that the squad communication works because of its small scale, so forgive me for being ocncerned that opening up the communication borders would pollute that efficacy by robbing us of that focus. But, like i said, an option to say just tone thing every once and awhile on global team chat seems like a no-brainer.
This game, again, seems best 4v4. you feel in control, you know where everyone is, and there’s no danger of getting 2 to cover one side and 2 to cover another because you’re only facing 4 to begin with… in an 8v8 game or even 16v16, it wouldn’t be effective to split up at all, so you’d have to take one side and just hope that others have got the other side covered… a little ludicrous. To be honest I don’t think big games are necessary. In squad rush there is plenty of action because the objectives bring everyone converging on one point, and the small periods of downtime for me just build up the tension and allow a bit of coordination between the team. God I love this game.