Review: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

I have a love and hate relationship with Battlefield: Bad Company 2. I love the combat, the beautiful animation which displays war in all its grisly beauty, and I adore the weapons. Hell, I even love the single player campaign, which brings back Haggard, Marlowe, Sweetwater and the always grumpy Sarge back together again. I loves it, I tells ya! But I do not love EA’s constant clusterfuck of server problems.

Developer: DICE
Publisher: EA
Platforms: PC.X360/PS3 [X360 Reviewed]

It’s taken me a while to sit down and write a proper review for Bad Company 2 for several reasons. One, I wanted to really dig into the campaign, get a feel for the story and enjoy it like a fine wine. Second, being that Battlefield titles are first and foremost known for a robust online play, I wanted to give the online portion the due it deserved. Its been a few weeks and the proverbial dust has settled enough to allow me to finally give Bad Company 2 a fair review. 

First, let me get this off of my chest.  Here at GND we do things a little differently than other review sites. If you want a long winded review about what the game isn’t and how it compares to Modern Warfare 2, then look else where. This isn’t how we do things. Our goal is take a conversational approach to a review, basically you wouldn’t tell your buddy how that new game you bought got an 8 in graphics but that the bumpmapping on the rocks was poorly done. No one gives a damn about that, I’m giving you a rundown of what really matters. Is this game worth your hard earned $60 or not?

Bad Company 2 follows the same ragtag group of Bad Company 1, which it seems not to many fine folks actually purchased. Shame on you, dammit, it was a great shooter— but I digress. Bad Company 2 follows B Company, a group of army dudes who are known as misfits, (think of Hogans Heroes and you’ll have a good idea) Which they still are in Bad Company 2, just thrust into a much more serious situation than in Bad Company 1. Sweetwater, Haggard and the rest of your crew are out to stop some insane bastard from using a WWII super weapon from destroying the damn world. It plays out a lot like an action movie from the 80’s, with awesome comedic dialogue thrown in for massive appeal. Some of the conversations your squad will have on the battlefield will have you in stitches. From discussing the finer points of Wrestlemania to BBQ chicken, B Company is full of laughs. But don’t think that is all showtime at the Apollo, Bad Company 2 has some damn fine shooter combat. Enemies are fierce and love to hide in bushes, in abandoned buildings… hell, everywhere. You’ll have to keep your eyes and ears open for incoming sniper fire. I say ears because Bad Company 2 has some of the best damn environmental audio of any shooter I’ve played. You can literally spot where your enemies are by hearing where the fire is coming from, granted you need a nice surround sound system - but if you do - Bad Company 2 delivers a aural orgasms every few seconds. Guns sound chunky, explosions roar and enemies will shout profanities as you shoot them full of lead.

The single player campaign will last you a good 10 hours, which is just about right. But you don’t buy Bad Company 2 for its single player, ya buy it to shoot friends in the face online, America’s favorite new past-time. When it works, Bad Company 2’s online is fantastic! Maps are huge full of gorgeous destructible environments and tons of vehicles. Jeeps, helicopters, 4x4’s and huge tanks all are a blast to play with, and fairly straight forward to control. Online consists of Rush mode, Conquest,  Squad Deathmatch and Squad Rush. If you love playing as team, which is what Bad Company is all about Conquest and Rush mode are the ones you’ll want to stick with the most, but for those that want some deathmatch action; Squad Deathmatch and Squad Rush offer the candy you’re looking for. Similar to Modern Warfare 2 you can unlock new weapons and gain rank, but that’s about all this has in common with Modern Warfare. 

The online is tons of fun, unlocking weapons and leveling up really do feel rewarding. Blowing up buildings with enemies and teaming up with friends for some team based combat is thrilling! The real reward of the online play, at least in my opinion is ganking someone with your knife. Knifing someone will earn you their virtual dogtags. A sort of virtual collection of fools you’ve owned online, it’s an incredible feeling and one that made me use my knife much more than I should have.

But here in lies the one caveat to all this online splendor - it has to actually work! EA servers have been since day 1 problematic. Sometimes you will connect and have a great lag free experience, but often than not, servers will be down, maps will never load and just give you that spinning loading sign or will crash to the Xbox dashboard and on the PSN it will just stall and not connect. It’s all incredibly frustrating, and if that wasn’t bad enough from time to time your hard earned stats will magically disappear. Thankfully within a few hours they return but seeing that shock upon booting up the game can make one have a panic attack. Bad Company 2 is an incredible package for FPS fans. It has a solid single player campaign with destructible environments, lots of laughs and a rewarding multiplayer experience… when it actually works that is. DICE has done a great job of constantly trying to fix the server issue, sadly it’s still problematic but hopefully in the next week or two their servers will actually be able to handle the immense load of gamers wanting to enjoy the stellar online play of Bad Company 2.

 By: Michael Torres