Battlefield Bad Company 2

Bad Company 2

Summary: This game does not suck.  Skip the single player mode.  Multiplayer is rich and inviting, but missed some easy opportunities to best BF 2142 in terms of the replayability and technical shortcomings.

The Single Player Mode. Let me set the stage.  You are part of a dedicated squad of soldiers on a special mission to save the world.  Your past haunts you.  You have a Texan, a black man, and a forgettable fourth guy in your quad.  You are white.  Aw shit, who cares.  The story is just like every other single player campaign in recent memory.  To be totally honest, I cannot remember too much about the single player game except for the fact it was hard in about 2 places, you walked in a straight line from beginning to end, and blah blah blah… you save the world – – run credits.

More importantly, this is not the typical Battlefield Franchise game in single player mode.  It is no longer the training grounds for multi player.  You will probably play this mode because you paid for it, but it does not justify the price.  Typical of this genre is the strain between writing a good single player game for that market and the multiplayer.  What does one have to do with the other?  Very little.

Where is the revised Battlefield Theme????

Little glitchy.

Some crates in the middle of the air.

Selecting exit game in single player menu doesn’t always work.  Someone less experienced with computers would be frustrated.

Weapon and ammo supply and selection somewhat meaningless.  You either have a sniper rifle, automatic rifle or rocket launcher.  Some distinctions here and there, but I don’t feel like it made a material difference.  Easy to find and ammo not a problem anywhere in the gameplay.

Good AI

Graphics Good.

Runs smoothly, no lag on my rig

Multiplayer

Not BF 2142, but in many ways better.

I am pretty sure this game was written for the XBOX or whatever other loser gaming system the teenagers of the world own, and multiplayer shows it.  Good, or even great multiplayer experience however.

Graphics of course, are better, and they should be at this point in history.  Another very interesting difference is the fact that the environments are destructible.  For example, you can blow up a wooden building holding something important and it crumbles to the ground.  If anyone is in the building, they die.  If your objective you need to destroy is in the building you achieve it.   Bullets are affected by gravity.  Very interesting aspect that minimizes the effect of snipers.  The mix of weapons and gadgets is also richer than in BF 2142, but the distinction is superficial.  Like all multiplayer team shooters of the genre, there is an assault, sniper, medic, and engineer option.  I mean, hey, what else are you going to put in there, a chaplain?  Also, the improvements in your weapons within a given class are very incremental, so there is no big gain in ability unless you compare the entry level assault rifle to the ultimate one received.

By and large the vast majority of the on line play is in Rush mode.  This mode’s gameplay involves two teams (duh, but wouldn’t it be interesting if someone came up with a three team on line game?) one playing offense.  They must destroy two M-Comm boxes (I’m sure someone has figured out what that stands for, check our FAQ recommendation) by approaching them and arming them.  It is unclear why the defending team leaves explosives near a box they are defending, but we cannot question too much in this universe.  For example, just exactly how does your body transport and heal itself at your base in approximately 8 seconds after you were shot in the face with a bazooka?  Once those boxes are destroyed, the gameplay then shifts to an adjacent area where two more boxes must be destroyed or defended.  If the offensive team fails to destroy the boxes before they run out of men, they lose.

Multiplayer has other modes including standbys like base capture and Squad Rush, which is a smaller version of Rush limited to two four person teams.  But for the most part all the action is on the Rush servers.

BFBC2 has three significant shortcomings when compared to BF 2142’s multiplayer experience.  First, teamwork is not as rewarding or possible.  There is no overall commander, and the voice communications is not utilized well.  We cannot tell if this is a problem on our end or not, but we have only joined one squad in the last three months where the voice commands were used.  Repeated attempts to engage our squad members using voice chat failed.  This does not hamper the game, but it does mean you miss a chance to maximize teamwork opportunities.  Related to this shortcoming is the map size.  There are very few wide open large scale maps.  This makes sense because the game is foot soldier oriented and the vehicles are less important.   If you did not have small maps you could spend a good 2 minutes running to the action because the vehicles do not appear very often in most maps.  Because these multiplaying fields are so small, it is possible that many people do not use the voice chat option because events are too chaotic to plan.  For example, if you are in a frenzied firefight where you simply need to shoot in front of you and dodge grenades, a few words from your squadmate relating the location of the eight enemies directly in front of you in a building isn’t going to add much to your ability to defeat them.  The reward of voice chat commands in most situations just simply isn’t worth the effort.  In turn, this also highlights that the multiplayer game doesn’t reward discipline, teamwork, or simple planning like BF 2142 does.  In BFBC2, the 13 year old with the screaming game rig with a 25” monitor and no lag is far more likely to best you than the calm, patient guy like me who is willing to stay behind the action as a medic solely for the purpose of healing my squad mates so that we can win the overall game, even though it may be a little boring.

Second, this game has is that the leveling up for improved weaponry and gadgets can be fully complete in about a month of gameplay.  Therefore, there is no meaningful reason to continue playing unless you like the game play.  After month two, I am just about bored because I have all the guns and gadgets.  I do not have all the awards, gold stars, and rank etc.  But as far as I can tell there is absolutely no difference between the 4 Star General who caps me and myself in terms of weapon damage, accuracy etc.

Third, and the most frustrating, is that the on line experience for the XP  in terms of locating a game and joining the one where your internet connection works best is infuriating.  First, the ping indicator does not work on XP.  If you get it working on a PC that runs on XP home edition, let us know.  However, we have read about 30 articles on line on how to fix this problem and absolutely none of them work.  This means that when you search for an on line game you have no indication of whether the game you enter is going to be choppy or smooth until you actually joint the game.  Once you enter the game, the ping indicator works just fine, which is irritating because it means that your computer is not the problem, it is Electonic Arts’ fault.  One other irritating thing about this characteristic is that the ping indicator does work intermittently, but randomly further teasing you that you could avoid selecting your games based on the hint of where the server is located in the name.  Now granted, we are running this game on XP, which is 10 years old, but the problem should be avoidable.

Conclusion: Same as the summary dude.

Publisher:          EA DICE

Release Date:   March 2010

Episode 3 - Battlefield Bad Company 2 does not suck.

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