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Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Review: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

Boom, rat-tat, boom, “ooh where’s me leg gone.” Yawn. We’ve done it in space, we’ve done it in cities, villages and jungles. LT aim down site, RT fire, miss, die. I might just suck at FPS compared to all these mutant teenagers we’ve been breeding who’ve developed cyborg-like reaction speeds and potty mouths that would make a tourettes addled drunk blush, but that isn’t the only reason the fun has been sucked out of these games for me over the years. I’m bored. Oh, I know you don’t care what I think personally, but is this not a general feeling now, are we at that point yet?

Modern Warfare did great things for the genre, injected something different into the single player, invented some interesting takes on the “point and shoot, no no, shoot faster, point better” mechanics, but once that was over, the multiplayer got old, pretty fast. Levelling mechanics, ah yes, everyone needs one of those these days. I don’t doubt that if someone re-made Pac-Man there would be levels and unlocks. Different colour faces or teeth perhaps, the ability to call in air strikes (actually, that I’d play). With first-person multiplayer however it is just a way of rationing the fun so you’ll play longer.



Battlefield: Bad Company 2 does all of this too. So here’s the review of the single player. Characters mildly interesting, story disjointed, probably not as good as Modern Warfare 1 or 2. Oh you can break down scenery, but to be honest its cosmetic and doesn’t really affect anything important. 7/10 - buy it if you want, I don’t care, I’m playing Pac-Man 2: Blitzkrieg.

However, and it’s a massive one (probably deserving of a bolder type, but I cant afford it) then there is the multiplayer. This is why I’m still playing this game months after release. Games are divided mainly into two kinds, Rush and Conquest. Conquest is your typical area domination game, squads move into a space and try to defend it as long as possible. I’ll talk more about squads in a moment. Rush has one side attacking a pair of stations with the goal of arming charges on them and blowing them up, whilst the other side surprisingly tries to stop this happening. The attacking side has limited respawns, and only gets refreshed once both stations are destroyed, which in turn opens up the map to another area with two new stations. This happens 3-4 times on each map and if the attackers destroy the lot, they win, else the defenders hold their positions and win by taking all of the attackers lives. Take a breath.

Teams are divided into squads of up to 4 players who can use each other as respawn points when they die. As with any levelling mechanic various actions score experience points which go towards new unlocks for that class as well as an overall level. Multiple actions or streaks unlock award pins and insignias which are worth more points.

Sounds alright, but why is this so good? Well, along side all this, BF:BC2 employs a class system. Your class dictates what weapon load outs and abilities you have. We can be recon, engineer, assault or medic, basically translating as sniper, rockets, grunt or, err… medic. “Heard it” is the cry from the sceptics out there. Yes, I know, me too… but, BF:BC2 makes it work. I’ll give you an example;



 I was playing as a defender on a map known as Port Valdez, a well presented winter map with a number of vehicles and buildings to explode. We were having a hard time of it defending a building which contained our last remaining station, taking fire from all sides with walls crumbling around us. I was not doing so well on the kills front and constant reviews of the scoreboard had me dead last. So in my frustration I went for the medic class. Medics come equipped with defibrillators and health packs, as well as Light Machine guns and the usual sidearms. This is where I found love for the game. I didn’t make another kill for the rest of the game, instead I scored hundreds of points reviving dead squad mates and healing the wounded. The fact that our force inside the building was relentless and I was managing to stay alive and heal people, meant we could push the attackers back and eventually win the game. A final look at the scoreboard had be third overall for points scored. The feeling of making a real contribution to a win, without necessarily being the fastest and most accurate shooter was something no other FPS has managed to give me.

A new way to play FPS, its what I’ve been looking for. Loads of FPS games give us new weapons, maps and premises, but rarely an opportunity to think so much about how you would like to approach a game, or react to a situation that has developed inside a game. Tanks are breaking down your front line, well you’re screwed without an engineer or recon player who has the explosives to stop it. Found a great sniper nest but run out of ammo, shout your assault pals over to drop off an ammo pack. The 4 simple classes work wonders when employed in this way. Add to this the destructible scenery. In multiplayer is makes a huge difference. Cant get that sniper hiding behind that wall? Shucks… blow the damn wall up, better yet, collapse the building around him.

So many games tack on multiplayer as an afterthought of a good single player, no genre more guilty of that than FPS. If anything, DICE and EA have done it the opposite way around, which leaves me yearning for someone to do both one day. While we wait, there is a lot of fun to be had here and its not going to require any biotic implants.