Battlefield: Bad Company 2 continues the wisecracks and camaraderie of the first
I started playing Battlefield: Bad Company 2 last week and have since put a few hours into both the single player and the multiplayer. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills or something when I think the game isn’t THAT good nor is it as good as its predecessor. I’m more in line with Bloosoda’s impressions that he shared earlier: it’s ok, but it’s no Modern Warfare 2. Yet I’m reading articles, reviews, and forum threads with people really loving it and all that. Maybe part of it is due to PC gamers giving it more love, but as a 360 gamer, I keep wanting to shut this game off and go back to Modern Warfare 2. What am I missing?
The Campaign
I’ve played about four missions into the campaign, and so far it is enjoyable. I’ve read a few people saying Bad Company 2′s campaign is forgettable and the multiplayer is where it’s at. While it may not have the exhilaration of Modern Warfare 1 or 2′s campaigns, it’s still decent in its own way. The strongest thing going for Bad Company 2′s campaign is that you really feel like you’re a part of a 4-man squad. Unlike other campaigns in major shooter games such as Halo 3, Gears of War, and even Call of Duty, Bad Company is perhaps the only one that has you fighting with your other three AI controlled squad-mates and yet it feels like you’re really among friends.
Rainbow Six: Vegas did a good job with the three-man squads, but it was more about you giving orders to your two elite-ops guys who simply acknowledge your commands and move into action. Bad Company 2′s squad members have character and soul. They’ll laugh, joke, get scared, and throught it all, it is perhaps as close as we gamers may feel to being a part of a squad being stuck carrying out crazy missions with a crew that wasn’t really born to do them. Unfortunately, in the sequel, our squad is not looking for gold bars anymore, but actually carrying out more serious missions so part of the humor (I still remember driving in a golf cart in the first one’s campaign) is not as pronounced.
I’m still enjoying it and the squad members’ dialogue is one of the driving strengths of this otherwise typical campaign shooter. The question is how long is it?
Multiplayer
In Battlefield Bad Company 2′s multiplayer, you have an online profile that can rank up to Level 50, and the profile acts in a similar way to both the original Bad Company and the Modern Warfare games. The primary difference between the profile system of the Bad Company series and the Modern Warfare series is that in Bad Company, there are set classes that you have to choose among whereas in Modern Warfare, there are no classes so you can build whatever type of character you want. Bad Company 2 focuses more on squads, as you can be a part of a 4-man squad on your team and have the choice of respawning on any alive squadmate in any multiplayer mode. Most of the multiplayer gameplay mechanics are similar to the first, so please check out our review on the first for more information on general multiplayer.
The multiplayer modes of Bad Company 2 include:
Rush
Rush Mode is pretty much the same as Bad Company 1′s Gold Rush mode: one team is set as the defenders and the other team is set as the attackers. The attacking team has about 75 respawns to take out 2 crates with bombs, and if they take out the two crates, the defenders are pushed back 3-4 times across a very large map and the attacking team gets a fresh 75 respawn count to take out the next pair of crates. If at any point the attacking team runs out of the 75 respawn tickets, the defenders win and if the attackers are able to destroy all the crates on the map (generally 8-10), the attackers win.
One thing I’ve noticed in this new Rush mode is that the charges go off quicker than they did in Bad Company 1. I think this is a welcome change, as it tips the scales a little bit in making the two sides more even.
Conquest
Conquest is the mode that the Battlefield series is known for. Two teams fight across a large map trying to hold onto different flags with a limited number of respawn tickets. Every time a team’s member dies, that team’s respawn ticket decreases. Holding more than half of the flags forces the opposing team to bleed out respawn tickets, but in Bad Company 2 it’s so slow that some argue the mode has basically become Team Deathmatch.
Squad Deathmatch
New in Bad Company 2 is a Squad Deathmatch mode, which pits 4 squads of 4 against each other with the winning team getting 50 kills first. A random vehicle spawns at times throughout the course of the match, but for the most part, it’s still about working with your squad and trying to get 50 kills before the other 3 squads do.
Squad Rush
This is the Gamestop Pre-Order only mode which will get unlocked for everyone next month. I didn’t get a chance to play it since I didn’t pre-order from Gamestop, but it’s basically Rush mode but only allows for one squad against another (4v4).
Big Differences Between Modern Warfare 2 & Bad Company 2
Here are some things that were pretty jarring to me as I got more accustomed to Bad Company 2′s multiplayer. The first is that the weapon balancing is completely different. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s worth noting for those of you that are Modern Warfare 2 players thinking about making the jump over.
In Bad Company 2, the medic class has the LMG, and unlike MW2′s LMG that is super powerful, Bad Company 2′s LMG appears to be the weakest weapon type but has the most rounds and best accuracy for sustained fire. At the same time, shotguns Bad Company 2 can hit (and kill) someone ridiculously far away, so that had me scratching my head a bit too. SMG’s also have very good aim when you aim down the sight. I was killing opponents from an assault rifle distance by aiming down the sight and just peppering a few rounds with my SMG – something unheard of in Modern Warfare 2. And finally, the sniper rifles seem to be very restricting so far. The starting sniper rifle is bolt action, so after you fire one shot, you have to reload. And if you don’t hit the opponent with a headshot, it’s not a kill so it’s quite frustrating. The second sniper rifle I’ve unlocked is semi-automatic, yet it is significantly weaker and it doesn’t seem like a headshot kills the opponent, so now I have to keep firing it at the opponent to get a kill. Either way, I was not super happy with the sniper rifle balancing. That didn’t seem to stop other people though, as it seems like in several Rush games I’ve played, half of the players just pick the Sniper class and hide somewhere along the edge of a map to snipe.
Bad Company 2 is also a more team-work oriented game. Leaderboards and such focus on scores that you get from performing team-oriented actions. There is no kill/death ratio on the Leaderboards. Your life doesn’t regenerate after taking damage so you have to find a teammate that is a medic. (An annoying thing is that you can’t even see your lifebar.) The shorter bomb plant time in Rush mode really stings when you’re up against a team that has squads of friends. These guys will move as a group, plant the bombs, hold the positions, and you’ll lose the match quite quickly. In other words, you can’t play this game like you would Modern Warfare 2 where individual players can be “all stars” that carry a team. Bad Company 2 is more fun playing with a squad you know, but at the same time, going up against a team with people working together while you are soloing can be very frustrating.
Parting Thoughts
Part of me suspects the “extra love” Bad Company 2 is getting is through PC players, who felt jilted that Modern Warfare 2 did not allow for dedicated servers so they “flocked” to Bad Company 2. But for me, I don’t see how Bad Company 2 is better in any way compared to Modern Warfare 2 unless you really love vehicles in your multiplayer shooters. And the strange thing is, I am still trying to figure out why I enjoyed Bad Company 1′s multiplayer and Battlefield 1943 more than I am enjoying Bad Company 2′s multiplayer. Battlefield 1943 I think I can understand – the game was just boiled down to a basic level and it was therefore simple and enjoyable. Maybe I liked Bad Company 1′s maps more because they were smaller and thus snipers weren’t all over the place? Hopefully I figure it out as I put more time into this game.
My recommendation for this game is to only pick it up only if you are absolutely done with Modern Warfare 2 – whether it’s because you’re bored of Modern Warfare 2, can’t stand it anymore, etc. Even only three weeks after its release, I feel like I picked this game up too soon. I’d still rather go back to Modern Warfare 2. Bad Company 2 is slower, more tactical, and more team-oriented. Whereas one can easily play Modern Warfare 2 solo online, Bad Company 2 solo online is rough going and not necessarily advised. I may end up just trying to level up in Bad Company 2′s multiplayer so that I can go back to Modern Warfare 2.
Nice impressions post. One question I have is: Are you playing with people that you know or just randoms online? It’s a thousand times better if you play in a squad with friends, and even better still if you have a good mix of kits playing. I’m a big fan of the rush mode, but only if I have a team that is equal or better than the opposing team. Losing by a longshot in Rush is miserable for me. I’m okay with losing with, say, the enemy having twenty respawns left when they destroy my last crate, but I just wouldn’t be able to stand it if I was the attacking team and got stomped before even destroying one crate.
One other question: What kit do you usually play as? I myself play as the Medic, but I really can’t stand the LMGs in the game. The only gun I will use is the Thompson, which due to a glitch, doesn’t count kills toward stars.
If you aren’t playing with a full squad of three other people you know, you aren’t missing much with Squad Rush. I played it a few times on my own, and I can tell it would be a huge amount of fun with a team of people I knew, but not that many people on my friends list actually have the game. (Also, Squad Rush only has one crate, and when that one crate is destroyed you push back to the next because of the small teams.)
I’m going to go off on a tangent here, but I feel it’s slightly relevant due to the fact that the Modern Warfare 2 Map Pack is coming out tomorrow. I can’t decide whether or not to buy it. Are you guys getting it? It’s not the five bucks extra that really bothers me, so much as it is supporting a future $15 price point for map packs, and possibly other game add-ons if people keep buying at $15. I really hope not that many people buy the pack (although I know it will sell millions) just so it will go back down to $10. It just doesn’t make sense. In CoD4 you got 4 NEW maps for $10. Now, in MW2, you’re only getting 75% of the new content you got in CoD4. Yet they are charging $5 extra for it.
for now I’m actually playing with just randoms online. I know this game is tons better with friends, but most of the people I know are still playing Modern Warfare 2 (and who can blame them?). In a way, I think some of them are depending on my impressions to see whether or not to jump in, and based on what I’m seeing, I can’t recommend them to switch over since MW2 is still the better game. So…i will most likely be drifting back and forth between games although I definitely admit that playing bad company 2 online solo does get lonely haha
I’ve been switching around among all four kits a lot but it also depends on the mode. If I’m on defense for Rush, I’ll often go Recon or Assault, and if I’m on offense, I’ll go Assault or Engineer. With Conquest, I’ll go Medic first and then a combination of Assault and Engineer. They all have their uses in their own way. I’m not a fan of the Medic’s LMG at all either, but I hear that at a higher level you unlock a really strong LMG that some people even consider imbalanced heh.
But really, I like playing Medic on Conquest because I get tons of experience just healing people and bringing my teammates back to life. I almost don’t have to fire a single round so it’s fun in its own way. “Don’t you go dying on me!” I’ll yell as I run across a field to try to get a guy before he despawns. Of course, half the time I’ll get killed on my way over, but I guess I’m really “role playing” the medic and it’s a refreshing change from just trying to kill others. Now I’m saving them!
I’m going to hold off on the MW2 map pack for now – it’s on the expensive side but I see where Activision is coming from. They know how popular the game is, so they want to make as much money as they can. I can’t really blame them. If they charged $100 for MW2, I think tons of people would still buy it. It’s worth it with the hundreds of hours people play online with this game. Seriously – Modern Warfare 2 is probably worth more than 2 other $60 games put together. Maybe even more! So in a sense, while $10 is more of a fair price for this map pack, it’s MW2 so it’s somewhat worth the premium. Personally, I’m not sick of the dozen or so maps we already have in multiplayer, so I’m not going to pick this map pack up yet. Also, I’m not a big fan of paying for maps in multiplayer games, as I’m from the older PC mentality that they should all be free. But, again, I’ll reiterate that I’m generally neutral on the $15 price point. It may be worth it for some and not for others. The game is still awesome regardless!