WhatBoysWant

YOUR SQUAD IS ACTUALLY USEFUL. Unlike many recent FPS, your squad mates will actually be of great use.  You will however still be the only way to push forward in gun fights.  The squad AI will flank reasonably well, and they seem more than competent enough to handle whatever they get themselves into.  Their weapon load-outs are usually on the mark and they use each weapon in the correct situations. You will not see any of your team run in to a close-quarters firefight with a handgun. The only problem is they like to storm ahead after battles.

GORGEOUS AUDIO AND VISUALS. The new Frostbite engine is doing wonders, everything is well detailed and clear.  The atmospheric effects work well, and the lighting system is full-tilt.  Characters seem very human, and all the models work well are are very convincing.  There is also never a dip in frame rate even during the most intense firefights. Audio is crystal clear, and you can hear the absolute madness around you.

GUNS ARE WELL BALANCED AND FEEL DIFFERENT. Lately, I have noticed that certain notable games have had a huge stash of weapons, most of which play the same and don’t really differentiate themselves. Bad Company 2 bucks the trend with guns that genuinely handle differently and have noticeable changes to firefights. I found myself for the first time, in a long time actually choosing the sniper rifles and shotguns as my primary load out. Which brings me to my next point.

SHOTGUNS ARE ACTUALLY USEFUL. Most of the time, to me, shotguns have been useless at anything more than three meters away. I found that BC2 has found a good balance in both power, accuracy, and usability. In the game you can skillfully take down enemies unto six or seven meters away with the shotgun. Sniper rifles are surprisingly very effective as well in large mid-range battles.

IT IS LINEAR. While the first game offered us sprawling playgrounds for destruction it left most of the game unbalanced and badly paced.  Certain situations would leave you in pretty much insurmountable odds and force many retries. This time it is a lot more linear and makes it easier for you to find alternative paths. I know that some people treat the word ‘linear’ as a dirt word of gameplay. But it works well for this game.

GREAT TEAM MULTIPLAYER. While MW2’s team multiplayer is gimped with a low player count, Bad Company 2 offers up to 24 players on vast and varied maps. The real strength of this game is going to be the online multiplayer with large groups. The game is pretty well balanced, it doesn’t give any class a true advantage over the others, each has strength and weaknesses.

THEY DROPPED THE STUPID HEAL-YOURSELF-STABBING PEN. This in the first game just felt odd, if you were dying the only way to bring yourself back to health was to jab a white canister into the bullet riddled hunk of flesh-swiss cheese you called your chest.  It broke some of the gameplay, they however switched to the Halo de-facto standard of self healing with avoidance. Yeah it doesn’t make much sense, but it is a lot easier than switching to stab yourself when a tank unloads a few rounds to your face. Also, no random repairing of your stolen vehicle that was mysteriously abandoned.

FIREFIGHTS GET MORE THAN HECTIC. If you die, it is not because of bugs, controls, or gameplay problems.  It is because you were too deep into the firefight to make sense of it. You will get shelled from multiple sides, pinned under gun fire, and choke on the clouds of smoke.  I found myself, more than a handful of times, in the absolute worst spot which would lead to a quick death.

VEHICLES ARE PRESENT, BUT UNDER USED. You will only get one real time of using a non-railed vehicle to decimate the enemy.  There are vehicle chases, but they are too frantic to let you aim and place shots.  The rest of the time they are just regular transportation—which is a shame for single player.  On multiplayer though, they are absolute game changers in the right hands.

THEY POKE FUN AT MW2. Heh, it amuses me what Sweetwater occasionally says about their rivals.

WHAT THE HELL WAS THE POINT OF THAT SPOOKY SOUND CLIP ON THE WAY UP TO ONE OF THE THREE BASES.  Seriously, was that just a gag? It had no purpose.

STORY SEEMS LIKE A MADE FOR TV MOVIE. Yeah, so it turns out that the story for Bad Company 2 is well, pretty damn hokey. It comes off as more of an after-thought and just as a bare excuse for the solo gameplay.  While you will get the gist of what is happening, you never feel particularly part of it. Also the plot-twists are pretty obvious.

THE CHARACTERS HAVE NO PERSONALITY. Unlike the first one where Sweetwater and Haggard would converse and show a personal side to their character, this time around it is a minimal interaction.  Haggard comes off most of the time as a dick, and Sweetwater seems to have been lobotomized and no longer has any form of self-preservation. Sarge is just a robot.

AWKWARD CUTSCENES. Okay, maybe even Uwe Boll could of done a better job with the cutscenes.  For the most part, they seem unplanned, unpolished, disjointed, and just strange. They cut in normally, but the interactions between characters seems rather alien.  The voice acting is well handled, but the terrible dialogue negates it.

LACK OF SPLIT-SCREEN MULTIPLAYER. This just plain blows, it is either Solo or Online only. That means no LAN parties with consoles—unless they decide to patch it in later.

VERY ANTI-CLIMATIC ENDING. Yeah I won’t spoil it. But sufficed to say, it could of been a whole lot better.

[ALMOST] FINAL WORD: I will break it down like this. If you love good sized online battles and don’t care too much about LAN playing: Buy. If you prefer LAN and want to see how the game goes: Rent. If you just enjoy Single Player and the Multiplayer is an after thought: Rent.