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As you know I played the Bad Company 2 BETA and both loved and hated it at the same time. I preordered the limited edition of the full game and upon getting it I found that my Single Player save games would crash on load and that I couldn’t join multiplayer servers due to the EA/DICE Auth servers being bogged down.

So I couldn’t play the game…not a good start, but I’ve had worse. To be perfectly honest I knew it would happen, the BETA was so unpolished and needed more work to be truly complete…but now its becoming a Battlefield thing. Each and every game simply sucks until about 1.4 patch.

Anyway I have had a good crack at multiplayer and finished single player in one sitting to make sure it would crash, so I will do this review in two parts.

But first a quick background on what the game is:

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is the typical Modern Warfare world saving sort of game. A pitched battle between super powers, the Russians and the US…every Americans wet dream. Unfortunately EA have not quite figured out that the rest of the world doesn’t really like the US marines and special forces all that much which is why Soap and Price from the Modern Warfare series were received so well.

In true Battlefield tradition this game is set over large battlefields in most cases and makes use of stationary guns, tanks, planes, helicopters, road vehicles etc. It’s not the usual Modern Warfare troop conflict which I both like and dislike…the idea to me of “battlefield” combat is that you realise that you are simply a small part of a war machine…however when this game puts you in the troop combat position you become Ramirez, the guy that has to do EVERYTHING.

If you have played any Battlefield game mixed with any modern warfare game then you will feel comfortable in how to play.

Single Player:

As said before, I had to complete the Single player game in one hit to make sure I could finish it and to be honest I was disappointed. Firstly I played on low graphics as I always did on the BETA because it means you load twice as fast as every other person in the game in MP and thus you get the tanks/UAV at the start. However there is only one setting for both MP and SP so I had to change it for both to get SP to full graphics…but who cares…my point is: Play on high graphics…its about ten times better than low, its actually amazing.

Premise: You are an elite combat force promoted to a spec-ops position on the Battlefield due to your deeds in combat. You have to traverse the world and infiltrate enemy territory to gain control of a weapon that utilises EMP technology that will basically knock out the entire power grid from the US and allow the Russians to invade. In the famous words of Robin Williams: “DE JA FUCKING VU!” We did all this shit in Modern Warfare 2! What the hell?!

Unfortunately unlike MW2 your “elite” force consists of four all-American blokes which makes for a frustrating American propaganda game. You have the cliche Texan (although not fat), the token black Sergeant, the nerd guy that talks to much and the unsung hero known as Marlowe who you play as. Somehow you are four normal soldiers that can simply “adapt” to become amazing spec ops units that can save the “world” (I shit you not, you are only there to save the US but each time they mention it they talk about “the world”).

You travel into various locations around the world and make assaults on key locations to gain information about this “world/US” destroying technology. About the only thing I enjoyed with the entire single player campaign is the Helicopter pilot who was just hilarious.

Anyway gameplay time.

It is shit…well…the first half was fun, getting into it all…but it was so frustrating that it became shit…no matter how good the firefights were. Let me tell you this, play on easy mode. I played on normal mode which is apparently for “experienced” players…which I definitely am. Problem is, the difficulty curve is out of this world. In the initial missions the only thing that could kill you was heavy MG’s, in the later missions you were being triple head shotted by guys you couldnt see.

You can have at all times two main guns as well as various tools like C4 (which never gets used) and a Gustav RPG. The thing is, in games like MW you have to strategically use guns. Typically you keep your preferred weapon as well as an enemy weapon of sorts to make sure you never run out of ammo. In this game ammo is EVERYWHERE. You will NEVER run out no matter what you do so just pick your favourite weapon of choice and take an RPG as your second weapon so that you can destroy tanks, buildings and walls.

I’m going to give you one piece of advice here: Take the QBU-88 T88 semi-auto sniper rifle with red dot sights. It kills everything in one shot, is supremely accurate and can be used like a shotgun. I used it from about 1/3rd the way in all the way to the end because it was so damned easy to use.

As I said before the whole of the single player campaign is cliche American “trooper” propaganda where they try make “heros” but end up making retards. Here is a classic example: “Bravo two (my squad), there is some heavy artillery about to rain down on your location, I tried to delay them as much as I could but they’re beginning to fire”, “Oh shit sarge! Thats where the guy we need is!”, “Well lets go get him”.

You then procede to literally run through an artillery shelling…

Then about an hour later the Sergeant is like: “I’m too old for this shit I was supposed to retire, I have two kids, wife etc…oh! mortar bombing?! RUN THROUGH IT LOL!”

I kid you not…its stupid. In fact, if you play it learn this: After the mortar bombings…everything becomes insanely hard for no reason.

Time to talk about AI. There is none. Your team mates cant hit anything and when they do, it does little to no damage. So in effect your squad is entirely useless in every form of the word. If you dont do things in order like clear an area before moving on, you will come across a vast array of bugs. I came across dead ends because I didn’t trigger a movie, I came across invulnerable enemies as I needed to trigger an event before they could die, I got stuck in buildings as I waited for my teammates to shoot and kill one guy in open ground. It was highly annoying. Not to mention that your teammates dont move smoothly, they simply teleport around the battlefield as you advance. In one of the inital missions I got pinned down by two rpg’s, a heavy MG and about six guys with rifles but my squad hadn’t triggered the “move up” command yet so just stood in safety around the corner.

RAGE OMG SRSLY WTF?!

You will come across impossibly hard missions even on normal mode, like the truck stealing mission…the only way I could get through it was to spam grenade launcher at everything that moved while they had RPG’s and heavy MG’s returning fire killing me either instantly or in two to three hits, it was rubbish unnecessarily frustrating. Apparently I am to think of it as a “challenge” when simply put it was just stupidly hard.

So I dont think I’ll go into the single player more, in a word it was frustrating. The difficulty curve was all over the place and the story didnt make sense, not to mention the all-American HOOAH-ness of it all which no one bar Americans cares about.

Multiplayer:

In all honesty I got this game purely for the multiplayer. Unfortunately however it retains many of the bugs that the BETA had, the rego is still dodgy, searching for servers still takes forever, video lag still exists even on highend systems, crashes, no “hold” on ironsights – only toggle. However the core gameplay carried on through and the multiplayer is still hugely intense and fast paced and I love it.

I raised a point in my BETA impressions post that your level pretty much told you were you would be on the scoreboard. In MW you could still top a score board with low level perks and guns like the M16 with penetrating rounds or something, in BC2 you will struggle. We take in a squad of four experienced guys, usually two medics, one assault and one engineer and we all work together on vent but one high level guy will simply have too much cool stuff for us to be useful against him. I came across a medic with flak jacket and full level LMG, I unleashed about 30 bullets into him close range and he simply turned around and shot me dead…and walked off. So my point here is, expect to suck. Once you start getting unlocks you will get better.

The one level we have come to enjoy (I have forgotten the name) starts as a beach assault on small islands and ends up in your team assaulting up and over a large hill. The battlefield is littered with stationary weapons and vehicles and it is small…so the fighting gets REAL intense which makes the game so worth it.

There are many types of Multiplayer gameplay most of which you would expect but the game lacks in proper team management so most of the time you will be against a stacked team…which sucks.

Quick outline on the game types:

Rush: 16v16 match on a large battlefield where the attackers must smash through the defenders and destroy communications stations and force the enemy back. Typically the assaulting force will have the best firepower to start with but by the end the defenders will have some serious fire support to aid them.

Squad Rush: 4v4 troop combat without vehicles. Similar type to Rush but involves much more squad orientated combat, you need to work together to advance/defend.

Conquest: Typical capture and hold mission. Whoever holds the most points will force the enemy tickets down meaning they have to move harder and faster to gain the points back. This gametype involves a LOT of stealthy flanking missions which will drive you nuts when you’re on defence.

Squad Deathmatch: Squads of 4 will get together and battle it out for kills until they reach a kill limit, simple combat and usually has one light vehicle for a single squad to command.

I’ll keep talking if I’m not careful so I had better cut myself short here. Essentially if you’re going to get the game, get it purely for the multiplayer and make sure you are prepared to stick it out and put time into it as you will get sick of having crap weapons. If you can, try organise to play with friends on vent/TS as this not only makes the game a lot more fun, it also allows you to make tactics on the fly. The guys I play with (budda and co) always proves funny. Budda causes havoc, especially when he tries to fly, Gamgee is the pub hero who just wins all the time, Fairy rages too much, Fredzz is a good team player though

See you all on the battlefield!

Game gets 8/10, Multiplayer is buggy but really fun, stuff the single player.