This is a review for the Xbox 360 version of the game.

I originally didn’t want to include the Single-player section of this game as that part is really not the reason one would buy Battlefield, but I went through it to make this review more complete. That being said, let’s get the “worst” out of the way first:

Hey, man, I think they’re taking pictures for the Single-player portion of the game!

SINGLE-PLAYER

It takes about 5 1/2 to 6 hours to complete, and all the while, you’ll really just be itching to play online with everyone else. At best, some of the sections in the single-player part of the game match the intensity of what happens online with real players. The story concerns your team, “Bad Company”, as they travel the world in search of a devastating weapon to prevent its use. The times that I most enjoyed the game were the ones which allowed me some freedom, as opposed to some linear path. Every once in awhile, you will be in a somewhat large area, and essentially have to take out the enemies, but doing so is left to your discretion; you can go left, right, the middle path, and sometimes over rooftops. Unsurprisingly the game includes mounted-gun sections, which lately have become quite boring to me. Those kinds of sections in games remind me of the shallow gun-games in arcades of yesteryear. Although I had a little bit of fun with these sections, it would be nice if game designers would, for the most part, just get rid of them. Okay, now on to the real reason you should get this game, the Multi-player. After all, Battlefield has, for the longest time, been multi-player only anyway.

MULTI-PLAYER

Destructible Environments
FPS games are a dime a dozen, and I recommend Battlefield:Bad Company 2, but why should you get this game? Isn’t this just some war game with upgradable guns, vehicles, and bomb-the-base objectives? Yes, but have you ever been in a tank, chasing down your enemies, watching as they run into a house for cover as you blow open the side of that house? I don’t know of any other game that has destructible environments like this. Aside from tanks, there are other weapons like explosives and grenade launchers which can also wreak havoc on the buildings. You can utterly destroy some buildings, leaving absolutely nothing but the foundation left, and other buildings with eventually collapse, killing anyone still inside. Also, rather than arming a bomb to complete an objective, you can sometimes simply blow up the building. Having destructible environments is a game-changer. In addition to buildings, explosions can also make small indentations in the ground which can allow you to more easily hide anti-tank mines. I suppose there might be some FPS games which can get away with not having destructible environments for gameplay reasons, but after having them, I’m not sure I would prefer to play any other way in future FPS games.

That day, Joe even farted in a vain attempt to out-run the helicopter

Vehicles
There are many FPS games, but not many of them have vehicles. The addition of vehicles adds a ton of fun for me. Some of the vehicles in this game are the Humvee, ATV, Tank, an Anti-personnel tank, a jet ski, patrol boat, and a few different attack helicopters. My personal favorite is the attack helicopter. For some reason I just love flying, and this game allows me to do that. I’ve never flown a real helicopter, but I imagine this game simulates the movement of one really well. While it may seem like vehicles would too greatly alter the gameplay, and cause on-foot players to be at a disadvantage, rockets and mines usually prevent that from happening. Both teams usually have their own vehicles, and there are only a few maps that give only the attackers vehicles.

Objective-based Point System Instead of Kill to Death Ratios
When you pull up the scoreboard for most FPS games, you’ll simply see each player’s kills and deaths, but in Bad Company 2, you’ll see points. Players are rewarded for killing players, yes, but also for completing various tasks such as reviving a downed player, fixing a vehicle, partially killing an enemy, killing an enemy near the objective (meaning you’re not just killing randomly, but are protecting the objective), flying a vehicle while someone else in your vehicle gets a kill etc. There are many ways to get points, and I can’t stress enough how important it is that this game has a points system. With a lot of games that have Kills/Deaths as your only measure of player skill, the players are often way too cautious about dying, because they don’t want to have an embarrassing K/D ratio, and often don’t even do the objective, but sit somewhere safe and get kills. Well, for the most part, Bad Company 2 gets rid of that nonsense, and makes the game a lot more fun to play. For those of you who want to see your K/D ratio, it is displayed at the end of the round with other stats, but other players won’t see it.

Physics
There isn’t too much to say about the physics, but it must be said that you cannot always just aim directly at your enemy and assume that your bullets will hit their target. This is because if a target is far away, your bullets will slowly drop over time, and thus you must account for distance when shooting across the map. Don’t worry too much though, because it’s only at really far distances that it really affects your shots.

Despite having large maps, vehicles, and up to 24 players, the game looks great (click for larger size)

Large Maps
The maps in this game are huge. As long as the attackers keep accomplishing their objectives (Rush mode), they will move on to the next section of the map until they finally come to the last section and win the round. There are forests, jungles, deserts, and snow environments. Some maps have a few buildings, and some have a lot, which allows you to sneak around more. There are even a few maps with water sections and water vehicles. There is no lack of variety in the maps department. Also, there are some maps specific to certain game modes, which means there are plenty of maps to explore.

Game Modes

Rush Mode: The attackers always have two M-Com stations to destroy (they’re refrigerator-sized computers). They have 75 lives to accomplish this, but if they lose all of their lives, they lose. Blowing up the current two M-Com stations will allow them to move on to the next section to blow up another two M-Com stations. Rush Mode has the largest maps, and is my favorite game mode.

Conquest: There are several flag poles which act as a spawn point (if your team is in possession of them). The point of this game mode is to simply kill the other team and make them run out of lives. Taking the flag poles (spawn points) helps out, because you can have easy access to vehicles nearby, and it makes it harder for the enemy to corner your team.

Squad Rush: This is a 4 on 4 game mode, and is similar to Rush Mode, except that there are only two sections to the map, and only one M-Com station per section. This mode is great if you want slower paced, on-foot only gameplay. However, because there are only 4 players on your team, every life counts, and you have to put more effort into accomplishing the objective.

Squad Deathmatch: 4 squads of up to 4 players (16 players total) kill each other. The first squad to 50 kills wins the round. This mode is my least favorite, because it’s a little chaotic with 4 teams out there killing each other. Also, for some reason you can’t look at the scoreboard and even see if there are any other squads currently playing. Is there one person playing? Are there three? There’s no way to tell, and one time I was running around looking for people to kill, and there seemed to be only one person playing against me and my squad.

Classes
There are four different classes in Bad Company 2, and each has their own purpose. One thing that is interesting is that despite there being classes, there are certain general weapons which anyone can use. So, for example, you can have a Sniper’s gadgets, but be equipped with a shotgun! You can’t have a sniper rifle and a shotgun though, so the balance of the gameplay isn’t jeopardized by this feature.

Sniper: Obviously he can take out targets from long range, but he also gets two motion sensors which can be thrown very far, and detect nearby enemy units for his whole team to see. The motion detectors last for several seconds. He can also choose between a mortar strike (which has a cool down), or some detonation charges, which are good for taking out vehicles. Snipers are the class most likely to have you swearing, especially if they’re really good snipers. Knifing them in the back is the best form of revenge.

Assault: This class gets rifles as their main weapon. The Assault guys can give out ammo, and thus become important to everyone; unless you’re some kind of suicidal soldier who doesn’t care about personal safety, you’re going to run out of ammo and need an Assault soldier to refill your bullets/grenades/gadgets. The Assault class also gets a grenade launcher attachment (regular or smoke grenades) on his rifle, or a very deadly shotgun. So, essentially he’s the class that has the most attack power.

Medic: They get the light machine gun (you know, the less accurate ones with 100-200 bullet clips). I have no idea why they call it a light machine gun when it’s larger than a normal rifle or sub-machine gun. Compared to other games, the Medic’s light machine gun can actually hit targets surprisingly well, and isn’t battle-retarded (thank God). The Medic can revive “dead” soldiers, and put out med-packs to heal people nearby.

Engineer: Equipped with rifles and sub-machine guns that don’t seem as deadly as the Assault class’ guns. Their main priority is fixing vehicles, and destroying them. They get the option of different types of rockets or mines. The Engineers can also use their repair tool to kill people, which is quite funny if you’re able to do so.

GRIPES

There is an identification system in the game which allows you to press the “back” button on the Xbox 360 controller while aiming at an enemy to cause an orange icon to appear over that enemy’s head. This icon lasts for a few seconds, and can be seen across the map and through objects. So, if someone does this to you, all of the enemy team can see your position and shoot at you even if they can’t see you well (like if you’re hiding behind some bushes, for example). It doesn’t destroy the game, but it is a tad irritating. It would possibly be better for the icon to stay at the last spot you were seen, rather than following you even though you’re behind a wall etc.

The game is squad-based. Squads have up to four people in them. Players can respawn at any of their squad members who are currently alive. This seems to be great for attackers, because then they don’t always have to start at the beginning of the map, but when defenders effectively use their respawns, it can be irritating. Rather than running from their spawn point to the objective, defenders can spawn next to their squad and make it sometimes very difficult to complete the objective. In other words, you usually have to play as a team if you want to win. My other gripe with this system is that you can only talk to your squad members, which means you can’t create a strategy for your entire team. On the whole, it’s not a bad system, but it would be nice to be able to talk to the whole team at least as an option. If everyone opts to not join a squad, you can talk to everyone on the team, but then you don’t get the advantage of spawning at squad members’ positions.

Conclusion

This game is essentially the latest and (in my opinion) one of the greatest in the massive FPS genre. The destructible environments, vehicles, class system, bullet physics, huge maps, and variety in gameplay via the different game modes create a multi-player package that is very difficult to beat. It’s one of the best on the market currently, and I can’t recommend it enough if you’re up for some small to large-scale FPS online combat.

GRADE   A

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