Battlefield Bad Company 2 review

I am starting up the reviews again with a review of DICE's latest shooter.
I was reading through my Atomic magazine awards for 2010 and this game was a favorite of theirs so I downloaded 2 gigs of map pack and jumped into the multilayer again.

Although I didn't play a great deal of BF2, and most of it was spent sniping Chicko, I think I understood why the franchise was successful. Most FPS games simulate shooting people which is logical enough; BF simulated battle. You felt like you were a part of something greater still with a role to fulfill, or just to be a dick and put C4 on your chopper. It was always going to be interesting to see what the developers would do with improved graphics and to see if they could steal some players from CoD4.

The Crucifixion:
The initial release of Bad Company 2's multilayer was a farce. There were a multitude of problems involving a terrible lobby system and latency issues that made the game pretty much unplayable. This was a shame because there seemed to be a general feeling that this game could be epic.

The Resurrection:
Many months later an update was released that fixed almost all of the problems with the game. This was fantastic. Without all the stupid lag, I was free to go weapons hot.

The best feature of BC2, and the selling point that they flogged hard was the destructible terrain. Almost every building was destructible. This was done much better than in Crysis. It now took more than a gentle breeze to topple a fortress. Only explosives are capable of damaging a structure, which is fine because 3/4 classes carry them regularly. In many games the objective is generally shat on by both teams and what used to be a shelter to hide from fire while activating deactivating a bomb becomes a death trap and requires lots of team support to get.

Probably my best memory of BC2 was firing through a window, only to have the walls either side of me blown out. knowing my little piece of wall was next I bolted around the house never being able to stay in cover for more than a few seconds because it kept disappearing. So you know have a counter to camping, sweet. There is also a great effect that you go deaf and your ears ring if you are too close to an explosion which makes it really realistic and gets your heart pumping.

Classes:

There are 4 classes in BC2. Each class has a specialist weapon and ability set. You also have a role to fill and gets points for doing it. These points unlock your class's weapons and abilities and increase your overall rank. It's a pretty good system, and the numbers that appear after a kill or capture or anything are most satisfying and help justify you are not wasting your time, even though your probably are. Its a good system that keeps you motivated and on task, and as with any game ever, leveling up feels great.

Assault:
My least played class, the assault class is the predictable assault rifle guy. You get some cool weapons and some even cooler attachments for it. The most popular is the grenade launcher which is good for killing groups of guys and blasting holes in walls. Any OHKO weapon like this will obviously be abused and is abused, but its not nearly as bad as it could be. Combine the grenade launcher with hand grenades, your ammo box ability and a grenade capacity upgrade and you have a very effective class at saturating an area with explosives. The other attachments are the shotgun attachment which is great when in buildings, and the smoke canister launcher which is good for covering yourself and team mates and more importantly, pissing off snipers.
Assault is quite popular and I guess is the main attack force of your army but I found its style of play unfulfilling went not carry a shotgun and C4.

Medic:
The medic class was done really well in Bad Company 2. He is the master of LMG, healing and reviving. He is also a point whore. He gets some cool 200 clip weapons which have recoil controllable enough to sustain long periods of fire. Emptying a gun of 200 bullets is a great feeling, and even better knowing the guy hiding behind those rocks is wondering when you are going to run out. As a medic you generally float behind the other classes throwing out med kits to heal them, and using your magic metal plates to cure guys of their headshot wounds. This class was fun to play because you feel like the responsible guy on your team. Best part is, the medics on both teams (US and Russia) look like someones dad from the 70's, in camo.

Recon:
Now we are getting into the good stuff. The 'recon' class is a sniper class, with a few more team support options. You get these cool little motion sensor mine things that you can throw really far. They pick up bad guys for your team and help you protect your nest. You get the choice of C4 or a mortar strike. C4 is pretty obvious. The mortar strike is a pair of binoculars that you can focus on a target to call in off map arty. This has many cool uses such as destroying tanks, flushing out campers and saturating the objective. The sniper rifles you get are really diverse. You start off with a big bolt action M24, and unlock semiautomatic and even full auto snipers. My personal treasure is the last gun, the M95. Capable of shooting the pilot out of a helicopter, this beast makes a great sound and has been my trusty friend for a while now. Him and my magnum make a dynamite duo. Another cool feature of Recon class is the marksman bonus you get for ridiculously long range headshots. Finally the best thing about recon, you get to look like a shrub.

Engineer:
My beloved engie. If you play US, you are a black guy with a helmet. If you are Russian, a terrorist in a balaclava. The engineer hasn't changed much from BF2. You still get a main weapon, a pistol, an explosive of some kind and a the thing they use to put the wheels on F1 cars in the pits. The engineer only gets to use sub-machine guns which is great for me because I have a bit of a subby fetish. The mini AK and UMP are lots of fun and sound like gentle rain on a tin roof. Each class gets the option of using at tracer dart pistol that you can lock your RPGs onto. This is a great weapon to have, giving tanks and sometimes choppers no escape from a RPG. You get 3 RPGs, the RPG-7 standard, the noobtube, and an interesting weapon that behaves almost exactly the same way as the rocket launcher from HL2. You can also trade them in for a rather dull but effective landmine. You can spec your engineer to carry more ammo, be more effective against flesh, or more against armor. The majority of my time in the BC2 world is spent hunting tanks, and boy is it satisfying. No feeling is greater than killing an APC with 4 guys in it and watching the points flood in.

Vehicles:
Although not a class they need to be mentioned somewhere because they are the life and blood of your team on some maps. You get a good variety of vehicles. Attack helicopters, Transport choppers, APCs, main battle tanks, Hummers, ATVs and a tiny remote control helicopter. The rest of them speak for themselves and are pretty well balanced and enjoyable. The helicopter is a UAV that you control from a little monitor. It flies around scouting out bad guys and can call in a hellfire missile strike making it very useful, deadly and entertaining.


You get to pick one ability for your vehicles, mainly for your tanks and choppers. The choices are from extra armor, better sights, better damage, faster reload, smoke and an alternate weapons package. These are subtle but useful changes. There is much satisfaction in a tank battle in being able fire 3 shots off before the enemy does due to reload or escaping with smoke.

Maps:
This is a big feature of the game. The maps are set in interesting locations an have lots of features to play with or hide behind. Spawn camping is nearly impossible which is good news. There are two main game modes: conquest and rush. Rush is where the attcking team has to set off charges at different locations. When two targets are destroyed, the map opens up onto two more charges and the defense falls back. You get some tight games in this mode and players usually do their job. The charges are generally in an easily defendable position, such as on an island or in a valley making the games exciting most of the time as the attackers scurry in and try to push you back. Conquest is a free roam capture point mode where you start at your base and have to decide your own objectives. The two game styles are very different and both popular so you will always be able to find a game in each.

Overall...
A game that is difficult to get into but very rewarding when you do and if you get 3 mates to play with you your team of commandos will likely turn the tide of war.