By Martyn Licchelli
[originally published on March 6th 2010]
Battlefield Bad Company 2 follows the exploits of a rag tag group of soldiers from the B unit of 222nd army battalion. Commonly referred to as Bad Company, the soldiers are comprised of criminals and troublemakers, sent to war as cannon fodder to lower the enemies resistance before the real soldiers take to battle.
Those who played Bad Company 1 will be familiar with the characters. You play the protagonist, Preston Marlowe and are one again joined by your leader Redford, tech geek sweetwater, and trigger happy pyromaniac haggard. Those who did play the first game, will be happy to have the cast back as they were pretty well developed in the first game, and the sequel follows suit. The team share little bits of banter, that show an amount of personality missing from games like Modern Warfare, even if it is missing the humour of the first game.
In fact the game as a whole is missing the humour of it's predecessor. Whilst the first game was set in a very possible war in the near future between America and Russia, B Company spent their time hunting down gold reserves. They did what was asked of them as well, but the gold was always the attraction and banter was amusing. This time around, we start off in World War 2 showing what happened on a special mission that was top secret. By the 3rd mission, you're back with B Company and in the thick of the war with Russia once again, only this time there's no gold. Everything in this game is selfless defending of America, with the one goal being that if the team are successful they can go home.
This is probably why the humour is missing, it's not a tale that lends itself to slapstick or shenanigans. The interaction between the characters in cut-scenes is the only real time we get to see any humour, and it's these scenes that do the most for the game in my opinion as they blend the humour with a creative depth not often seen in first person shooters giving each of your squad a distinct personality. Modern Warfare had a great story, but the jumping from character to character often took me out of it, in Bad Company 2 I constantly want to know if Marlowe and Co will make it home, if they'll be released from their ties and allowed to go back to civilisation.
But whilst the characters between Modern Warfare and Battlefield are so different, the actual games feel quite similar. Similar settings for levels are even included. Graphics are of a similar quality, the more serious story fits in with Modern Warfare too. In fact main meat of the story, the actual war itself, is dull and uninspiring. But the 4 lead characters are entertaining enough to let me see past that... especially since this game is no more guilty of 'obvious plot syndrome' than 90% of the FPS games that have come out since Medal of Honour arrived 11 years ago. However, along with the cast of characters, the destructible environments help this game win out any comparisons that may be had. As impressive as Modern Warfare is, it feels quite linear. In Bad Company, if someone is in a building and you cant see him, simply blow it up and watch him fall down dead in the rubble. It's something that can be really quite pleasing, and truly makes you think you're in control. That is until your rocket which just took down a whole building, is suddenly unable to damage a similar building which is blocking your path, because as smart as your route may be, you're simply not allowed that way. It's a bit of a shame the first time you find a building like this, but once you realise your bound in to a certain play area, you can plan around this sort of annoyance and the game continues to constantly entertain.
Whilst I obviously don't want to ruin anything of the story, I will state that theirs an open ending leaving room for Bad Company 3. Which I'm looking forward to more than Modern Warfare, I just hope they let us see a bit more of the humour that made the first game so appealing.
Multiplayer in BC2 is limited to just 4 modes, revolving around teams. However rumours of a deathmatch mode have yet to be denied. Multiplayer is actually quite addictive, and the destructible environments lend way to strategies not used in other games. The games can be quite fast faced, especially when a team manages to get a tank, which basically leaves everyone else crapping themselves for fear of a building dropping on their head, the game also includes a ranking system so you feel like you're achieving something through constantly playing, there are even achievements linked to it, which is good news for Gamerscore and Trophy whores. But perhaps the best news is that the multiplayer servers run on dedicated servers, something Infinity Ward decided not to do with Modern Warfare, meaning that the games suffer from far less lag, and far fewer dropouts. It would be nice is more companies followed suit and did this.
Be warned though, to get the most it is best to buy this game brand new. DLC has been announced, to enhance multiplayer with new classes and new maps. But all DLC will be linked to the first account that activates it. If you buy your disc second hand, you may well find that your DLC has already been downloaded, a sneaky move by EA to combat second hand sales which will no doubt annoy a lot of fans. This is something btw, which will not apply to the PC version.
Overall Bad Company 2 is a pretty great game. Multiplayer could do with an extra mode or two, and single player could maybe have used an extra level or two, as the ending seems to come somewhat suddenly after a discovery in the desert. But what we have here is a game that should sit happily in any FPS fans collection.
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