Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is getting a lot support from fans, but it’s debatable if it’s even better than its predecessor.
I finished Battlefield: Bad Company 2′s campaign this past weekend, and have spent a decent number of hours in the multiplayer that I can give a pretty thorough final “review” on my time with the Xbox 360 version of the game. In short, if you enjoyed the first Battlefield: Bad Company game, the second one pretty much continues more of the first, although I’m not sure if it’s necessarily better. I’m not one of the people that was really blown away by this game like I was with Modern Warfare 1 or 2, and regret to say that I’ll probably be putting this game back on the shelf without even spending a considerable amount of time in the multiplayer. Read on for my thoughts why.
The Campaign
In my initial impressions of the game, I mentioned that I had enjoyed the first few levels of the campaign so far. But after completing it, my impressions have changed. I actually feel that the campaign of Bad Company 2 was inferior to the first, since it seems like it suffered from a case of lost identity and a shorter length. My fond memories of Bad Company 1′s campaign were just being goofy with the squad, cracking jokes, hoarding gold, etc. It was a FPS game that actually had humor in it, and that was something that was very unique about it compared to the Call of Duty games, the Gears of War games, the Tom Clancy games, etc. with all the gritty violence and explosions.
The same squad-mates from the first game return in the sequel, but instead of the craziness of the first, DICE has opted to go with a more traditional FPS campaign. It’s like they took a look at Call of Duty 4 and wanted to inject a bit of “epic-ness” to their campaign, and they came up short. I want the silly hijinks, wisecracks and gold hoarding of the first, not shooting hostage holders in the head and mowing through bad guys left and right. I could have gotten that in any other game and Modern Warfare is still king when it comes to a ridiculously epic shooter campaign. Bad Company 2′s engine is heavier and slower, and not as suited for “pulse-pounding” action compared to Modern Warfare’s twitch arcade-style gameplay. Thus, Bad Company 2′s campaign sits in this awkward place where it’s not quite funny and not quite epic, making it simply mediocre.
Not only is the campaign forgettable, but it’s actually quite short. Each of the first 10 missions lasts maybe about 10-15 minutes, and the last few are a bit longer and more complex (like the original game’s campaign!). For the most part, you’re just moving through an area and shooting guys, finding weapons, and blowing up optional crates. I remember in the first game you would make use of a lot more vehicles and gadgets, but in this one, the vastness of the first game’s campaign seem to have been significantly reduced. In practically every mission in Bad Company 2′s campaign, you’re fighting through a town. What good is a game that features vehicular warfare if you aren’t even really able to use it much? I blame the laziness of the developers for this one. What the heck happened? You guys delivered something enjoyable with the first game and came up so short on the second one!
Multiplayer
To be fair, I know that Bad Company 2′s multiplayer is a lot more enjoyable if you can play with friends in a squad. I spent all of my time online playing by myself, and while it wasn’t terrible, it was certainly less solo friendly than Modern Warfare 2. So, in a sense, this is a wash and doesn’t really affect my overall opinion of the game since it’s more enjoyable with friends, and less enjoyable solo.
There are several things I don’t like about Bad Company 2′s multiplayer though, and the first is that it’s not more enjoyable than the first game. I feel like people are playing it now because it’s the new one, but the maps were far superior in the original game. Not only were there more maps, but more vehicles too. Bad Company’s strongest competitive advantages to Call of Duty are its humor, its destructible environments, and its use of vehicles. In Bad Company 2, both the humor and the use of vehicles have been drastically reduced in both the campaign and multiplayer. What happened to the scope of the first Bad Company’s multiplayer? In that one, there were several levels where you spawned with tanks, choppers, and boats, but in this one, you’re lucky if spawn with an ATV and a tank on your side. The sequel seems to have reduced the emphasis on vehicular gameplay, and that’s simply not a good thing to do when you’re up against Modern Warfare 2.
The lack of maps is also regrettable. The first Bad Company seemed to have a decent variety of maps, but in Bad Company 2, I feel like I’m playing the same 4 maps over and over. And what I hate even more is how EA is trying to market Bad Company 2 by saying new free maps for VIP owners (basically, people that didn’t buy a used copy of the game), but these maps are just unlocked on the disc. The most recent map pack that was released a couple weeks ago did not require a download, and it was just a Conquest map unlocked for Rush, and a second map that was a Rush map unlocked for Conquest.
The biggest positive to the multiplayer of Bad Company 2 is that the progression and unlock system is improved over the former. It’s more in line with Modern Warfare’s unlock system, as Bad Company 2 even has perk slots now. What’s interesting is that instead of just one online persona that you can unlock everything with, you actually have to play each of the four classes to fully unlock all the weapons and attachments for that particular class. Generally, perks unlock just from leveling up, but you have progress bars for each of the four classes, which are fun to earn in their own way.
Final Thoughts
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 came out and failed to deliver a better game than the first one. I felt that the sequel’s campaign was not as strong as the first, and the multiplayer is really no better than the first game or even last summer’s hit, Battlefield 1943. If Bad Company 1, Bad Company 2, and Battlefield 1943 were all released for the first time today, I would choose to play either Bad Company 1 or Battlefield 1943 over Bad Company 2′s multiplayer. Sadly, the sequel is the more popular one these days, so if you want to play Battlefield, this is the one you are basically stuck with.
What I wonder is, what if Bad Company 2 didn’t allow for dedicated servers? Then the PC crowd would not be as supportive of the game and realize that maybe it’s truly not as awesome as they make it out to be. My recommendation is to pick it up only if you really need something else besides Modern Warfare 2. I’m still trying to come to terms with how this sequel can be inferior to the first…
Final Score: B
