Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Review

The Battlefield series was among the first to take the cramped environments of early first person shooters and expand them out to large, dynamic war zones. Multiple soldier classes, vehicles with positions that can be crewed by human players and sprawling maps are some of the series' major hallmarks. Recent iterations have added destructible environments and single player elements to the mix. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 continues the "bigger and better" ideology, polishing core mechanics that fans of the series love while layering on new ideas that bring the series up to date.

I never got around to playing the first Bad Company game, leaving me with few expectations for the sequel. After hours of playing I can confidently say that the majority of the game's strengths lie in its multiplayer component. It's not that the single player campaign is bad, it's just nothing spectacular. Average voice acting and a story that feels heavily derivative take away from what is otherwise solid game design. The levels are pretty enough to make gawking at them fun, but mediocre artificial intelligence leads to enemies that never feel like they pose too much of a threat. This makes the single player combat feel somewhat hollow, as taking out dim witted computer opponents is rarely as much fun as outsmarting an online enemy.

Levels vary from the blowing snow of the arctic to the glaring brightness of the desert, and even into steamy jungles overrun with thick vegetation. Each of them is gorgeous, with countless little visual touches adding an extra level of detail. The look of the sun glaring off the sand, or the way dust kicks up around a tank as it fires is uncannily realistic. Helicopters hovering low to the ground put off rotor wash that kicks up dust and debris. Clouds of smoke or dust from explosions and collapsing buildings create realistic visual obstacles, forcing you to adjust your plans accordingly. The game's environments are excellent arenas for waging war, and their dynamic nature will constantly keep you on your toes.

One of the coolest features of the first Bad Company was the ability to destroy just about anything in the game world, and that technology has gotten an overhaul in the sequel. You can mow down trees, blast your own entrances into buildings or even collapse entire structures down on top of your enemies. Fighting an enemy tank is a whole new game when its main gun can blast through almost anything you can hide behind. It's awesome even from a purely aesthetic perspective. Firing a rocket into a house and watching as a wall blows out, showering you in dust and splinters is an incredibly satisfying moment. Multiply that over an entire battlefield with a few dozen soldiers and a handful of vehicles blasting away at each other and it becomes intensely immersive.

Like I said before, the multiplayer is where it's at with Bad Company 2. Up to 32 players can play together at once, split evenly between two teams. Battlefield's classic Conquest mode features prominently, tasking gamers with capturing various points around each map to deplete their enemy's supply of tickets to win the round. This mode was the main attraction in previous installments of the Battlefield series, but I found myself having a lot more fun with Bad Company 2's Rush mode. Rush involves one team trying to defend a series of objectives while the other tries to plant bombs to take them out. As a result, combat is focused into the areas around these objectives, making for firefights that are much more intense and entertaining. Another mode, Squad Rush, pits your squad of four against four opponents. This mode puts the spotlight on individual skill as well as squad strategy, and made for some of the most potent victories and defeats I experienced while playing.

Bad Company 2 adds some new twists to the multiplayer, but many of them feel as if they were swiped straight out of other, similar games. A system of gaining experience points to unlock new abilities and equipment is in place, and it bears a striking resemblance to the leveling up seen in shooters such as Modern Warfare 2. Regardless, these unlocks will constantly motivate you to try out new classes, weapons and tactics. Apart from just weaponry, upgrades such as body armor or improved vehicle optics can be combined in many different ways, allowing you to get creative with your loadouts and your strategies about how to put them to use.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is a great online shooter, but only a good one when it comes to single player. It's unmistakably a Battlefield game, but at the same time blends in aspects of other great first person shooters. Bad Company 2 is the perfect game for getting online with some friends to blow stuff up. Tons of equipment and ability choices means there's a role for everyone to play, allowing you to help your team along the path to victory no matter your personal play style. Available on consoles as well as PC, this is a game my friends and I will be playing for months to come.