Battlefield: Bad Company 2

Review from Cav - Tuesday, 06 April 2010 @ 4:19am

I have just done something I’ve never done before while working at Australian Gamer – I have rewritten this review THREE times. I am just so torn on whether I actually like Battlefield Bad Company 2 or not. There are so many positives in this game, which set it apart from other First Person Shooters. Then there are many negatives that, in my opinion, bring it down. Does this create a tie on the score board and make BFBC2 just another game? Well let’s just say that I rate it above average.... only just. Yes, I can hear you all gasping in shock, but that’s okay; Antonio at my local dry cleaners now gets my flame-proof suit at least once a month since I started here at AG.

I can even light a BBQ with this thing!

We all know that it is hard transitioning from one FPS to another and finding yourself crouching when you should be reloading, but the transition to BFBC2 was quite easy. On the downside I did find the first WWII mission, the training mission, to be a little shallow and I came away not feeling very confident in my new-found abilities. I just don’t think it was really enough to get new players settled. But once you have a handle on the situation I really can’t complain about the control system. Now I am sure that someone is sitting back in their lounge room trying to think of a way to assemble the IFCFPSCSHVGC .

‘Umm, the what?’ I hear you ask.

Why, it’s The International Federation for the Consolidation of First Person Shooter Control Systems for Home Video Game Consoles of course! Now that would be very cool. As I said earlier, transition was easy but wouldn’t that be awesome? I went back to MW2 with the new DLC after playing BFBC2 and was constantly throwing grenades at close range while trying to score a melee kill..... certainly makes for one grumpy gamer and some entertaining Kill-Cams.

Hehehe! Go BOOM!

Now I understand the appeal of the destroyable environment in BFBC2, but I feel it takes away from the true sport that is marksmanship. Now collapsing a building is fun, but there’s no real challenge in it, is there? Half the time you don’t really have to hit main bracing structure points to collapse a building (yep, you guess it! theCAVman doesn’t possess a degree in engineering, but it sounded techo, right?)

One big positive that BFBC2 has going for it is the storyline and script. I really got into the story, it was very believable. Choc full of one liners and the occasional jib at Modern Warfare 2, the banter between the squad members should give you a chuckle during the course of the single player campaign. BUT the big thing that takes that positive and turns it around is the amount of glitches in the gameplay. It's awesome to fire four RPGs at a helicopter when IT’S SUSPENED UPSIDE DOWN IN MID AIR AND IT DOESN’T EXPLODE. I also don't understand how I can be standing next to a building that gets hit, it crumbles and I die, when my team mates just get up and dust themselves off like nothing ever happened. C'mon! Fair's fair! My squad also seemed to be a bit useless at times. I would have to go ahead and take out three quarters of the enemies before they advanced... um... yay team?

Stay frosty, Sarge? You've been out field WAY too long!

All of my friends were bugging me to get onto multiplayer and when I did, I think I went through my first two or three games without scoring a kill (my first kill was actually a melee kill... was happy with that) but that was due to the initial lack of weapons available and not having a friggin' clue about the maps. Finding a match wasn't hard and I rarely suffered any lag, but once again the negatives and the positives have come to balance each other out. The team balance created by the system is terrible as I quite often found myself in 8 on 3 situations. Also I found the length of some games such as rush to be way too long. I was playing one game that lasted at least half an hour. I normally use multiplayer as a ‘quick-fix’ option for my gaming. I like to be able jump in play a game or two and then quite as easily drop out again, but with games that go on longer than half an hour, like Rush, it’s a but ridiculous.

Pros

Great Story - Massive selection of weapons - Vehicles and true guided weapons - Use of trajectory physics and the Coriolis Effect

Cons

Occasional glitches - Drawn out multiplayer games - No team balance in multiplayer