|
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Digital Illusions
Genre: First-person shooter
Release date: Available now
Yes, you read that name above in red correctly. Through what at first had seemed a series of unfortunate events, RPG-girl (yours truly) has ended up reviewing the latest FPS to hit the Avault streets. While you might be inwardly groaning as much as I did when it first happened, you’ll be happy to hear that I was pleasantly surprised. Battlefield: Bad Company 2, the latest offering from DICE and EA, not only maintained my interest for the duration of my time with it, but it also continued to keep me coming back for more multiplayer punishment. I won’t say that the game converted me, but my visit to its world of blood, guts and guns was truly an exciting one.
The year is 1944, and WWII is gearing up for its final act. You find yourself on a mission to rescue/kidnap a Japanese scientist, and since the men of Able Company have managed to get themselves killed in the process, it’s up to the boys of Bravo to once again pick up the slack. On your way back with your objective in hand, the island goes boom, a giant wave overtakes you, and the last thing you see is a set of dog tags floating by. A flash of light later and you’re reborn as a new generation of soldier near the end of the Cold War. The doomsday weapon that took the boys down in 1944 is being rebuilt, and you need to stop that from happening. After a brief (six-hour) campaign, mission accomplished, and it’s time for a cold one…though it might have to wait until the end of the next incarnation. The Russians are invading Alaska.
 For those of you who can’t possibly stomach yet another trip to WWII, take a deep breath. That portion of the gameplay is merely the tutorial. It’s a fast-paced mission indeed, the purpose of which appears to be baptism by fire. Bottom line: if you don’t recognize it as friendly, shoot it. Your initial limited weapon selections can make this difficult, but keep at it. You’ll find yourself near the tail end of the Cold War soon enough, with much more sophisticated (and accurate) tools of destruction at your disposal. Prior to release, there was a lot of chatter about the inclusion of destructible environments in Bad Company 2, and after having experienced it, I can honestly say they add a lot to the game in terms of difficulty and realism. There’s nothing more fun than taking out an entire squad by firing an RPG into the wall shielding them, but that feeling can quickly shift when the wall you’re hiding behind gets blown away by the helo you were trying to snipe. The short single-player campaign is but your introduction, however, so once you’ve destroyed the black weapon, don’t immediately head to your nearest GameStop to trade it in. Multiplayer is the focus of Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and it’s here that the game truly excels. Currently the three flavors of multiplayer available are Squad Deathmatch, Conquest and Rush. Squad Deathmatch is fairly self-explanatory (kill, kill and kill), and Conquest is Capture the Flag. Rush, however, makes for interesting team sport and is the mode I found most enjoyable. In Rush, two teams alternate turns between blowing up one another’s bases and defending their own. Team killing is a potential hazard, but not one that I experienced to any great extent, probably due in large part to the enormous size of the maps involved.
In addition to bragging rights, there are multiple benefits to succeeding on the battlefield. Along with the better weapons and upgrades, you can knife an opponent in the spine and collect his dog tags to display as a trophy, receive medals and promotions for military performance, and collect the insignias of your fallen enemies as you progress. The not-completely-random placement of spawn points is also a nice touch. As for longevity, as long as DICE keeps adding DLC to avoid stagnation (a la Borderlands), we could find Bravo Company fighting the good fight well into next year.
 As you can see, there’s a lot to like in Bad Company 2, but there’s one aspect of multiplayer gameplay that’s just cripplingly confusing at first. Blue squares equal good guys, green triangles are neutral/allied parties, and red diamonds are the bad guys. That should be simple enough, except that you soon realize that the red diamonds are inconsistent in their appearance. There is a methodology behind this, but it did take me a couple of hours to figure it out. In the meantime, my sniper was more than a little hesitant with the trigger for fear of killing one of the good guys. To save you the trouble, good guys always display their tags. If you don’t see a tag, shoot!
Hardcore military shooter fans will definitely want to put this one in the “buy” category, but for everyone else, rent it until you’re sure this is a purchase you want to make. I concede that multiplayer is where it’s at here, but the current modes and maps might not be enough to make Battlefield: Bad Company 2 a keeper for everyone.
Our Score: 
Our Recommendation: 
|
The reason that the bad guys show up with Red Triangles is because thay have been spotted. For the Xbox 360 they are spotted by hitting the back button while they are in your sights. Then take them out or leave them for the team and work on something else.
I don’t understand why this game got 4 stars when you didn’t say one bad thing about it. It is also sad that you did not fully understand an aspect of the game (spotting enemies) before you wrote a review about the game.
I have to say that for me, the single player aspect of this game was far superior to that of COD:MW2.
@grazi: I did figure it out “That should be simple enough, except that you soon realize that the red diamonds are inconsistent in their appearance. There is a methodology behind this, but it did take me a couple of hours to figure it out.” As for the four stars – The single player is far too short, and I only found one of the three available mulitplayer modes worth coming back for.
Four stars is still really good.
For the record, Conquest mode isn’t exactly “capture the flag.” Not in the sense of “Grab a flag from the enemy base and take it back to your base,” at least.
Ostensibly, Conquest mode is supposed to involve capturing and holding specific territory denoted by a flag. You get points for the capture (or an assist) and points for defending it once held. After you’ve captured it, you can spawn at that flag location, so it acts as a sort of “forward base.” Your “home base” can never be captured (which can lead to other problems that I’ll get to in a minute).
One confusing and (to my mind) problematic aspect of this mode is that it deviates rather substantially from past versions of “Conquest” mode in Battlefield games. Most Battlefield games have had a “ticket” system (which simply means a limited number of respawns per team). The first team to run out of “tickets” loses the round. Traditionally, capturing either specific high value flags or an overwhelming majority of flags will trigger what is known as “Ticket bleed”. This is where your tickets start decreasing all on their own, even if no teammates are killed. It adds a strategic element to the game — do you push forward and capture that next flag with the knowledge that it’ll trigger the other team to bleed out, or do you stay put and hold a more easily defended position and wear them down by attrition? (Don’t bother answering — most people just push ahead anyway since they can’t sit still for more than 30 seconds in games like this.)
But here’s the problem: the bleed in BC2 is so slow as to be almost negligible. It’s still there, but it’s basically irrelevant. This essentially turns Conquest mode into a slightly less haphazard version of team deathmatch, with forward spawns. It also can lead to serious spawncamping/baserape. One team manages to push the other team back to their uncapturable spawn, at which point said team is simply the proverbial “fish” in the proverbial “barrel” to be shot at. Some people say “good, they deserve it.” Others say “This is clearly evidence of stupid map design.” Whatever your particular position on the subject, the fact of the matter is that, without a fast enough bleed rate, you can end up with several of the “camped” team simply disconnecting, leaving only a few paltry masochistic defenders to be picked off…very very slowly.
This can lead to extended games where you’re simply killing people as they spawn, which after a while gets pretty damn boring. I had this happen the first night I was playing the game — all but one player on the enemy team had disconnected, and there were three or four of us camping his main base. The match still went on for another ten minutes while we tried to run out the tickets and he refused to quit the round.
It is unfortunate that DICE has failed to make the bleed rate into a meaningful factor in Conquest mode. As I mentioned, this reduces the mode to little more than “Team Deathmatch with spawns at flags,” rather than the more tactical mode it used to be. Likewise, without an effective bleed rate, games can end up dragging on interminably while you hunt for that last sniper, camp the enemy’s base, or get camped yourself. Not great design, in my opinion.
Wasn’t supposed to come out until tomorrow, but playing the demo of Vietnam – now!!! (Xbox 360) – you’ll see the prompt to download when you start the game
Post a Comment