HOME

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Hands On

Published By: Dene Benham On: 02/12/2009 11:00

AT A GLANCE

"A detailed and complete combat experience."

The Good: Flattening buildings.

The Bad: Getting flattened by a building.

The Ugly: A 2/19 kill/death ratio.

By Dene Benham

For a couple of weeks U.S. and Russian troops have been waging a bloody and desperate battle for a small, strategically placed piece of land on the Russian coast. Arica Harbour is the location for Battlefield: Bad Company 2’s online beta, the first taste of DICE studio’s new tactical shooter. From completely destructible environments to a wealth of weaponry, vehicles and gadgets, Bad Company 2 may set a new standard for online action in 2010.

The game looks great and plays brilliantly. Taking command of a tank, you can flatten buildings, fly remote controlled helicopters to target enemy strongholds, or simply choose from dozens of accurately depicted weapons to launch one last desperate ground assault in the face of certain death. While the finished game, due for release in March, will include a single player story mode, the beta is essentially a showcase for the game’s online features.

You play as either the U.S. or Russian forces in teams of up to twelve. Rush is the only game mode available and you have to fight your way to specific targets, set charges and destroy them. If you manage to destroy two targets then the next section of the map opens up, and the next sortie begins. Destroy all the targets and you win. But the fighting doesn’t stop there. If you stick with your squad you are automatically switched to the Russian side where you have to defend the same targets.

You begin in the desert. A rudimentary road stretches out in front of you. It is littered with the broken machinery and destroyed vehicles left behind after a fierce running battle. Low dunes stretch out on either side and ahead you can make out the concrete walls of a fortified compound. Air support passes overhead to lay the groundwork for the push forward. The environment has a great feeling of space and distance, the opening calm before an intense and frantic gaming experience.

The battles are fast-paced and deadly. Snipers pick off teammates, tanks crush those left behind, rockets and grenades fill the air with clouds of debris and ash, out of which pour unending numbers of enemy forces.

But, make it past the compound and it’s down a hill to a small coastal town that can be, with a little effort, reduced to crumbling foundations, craters and large piles of rubble. Finally, you fight across a bridge, around freight trains, through empty containers and warehouses, and to the harbour. If you die you can return to the section's re-spawn point, hopefully near a usable vehicle, or you can spawn next to a teammate, and stay in the fight. While staying in the fight is admirable, it often ends with a quick death. In Bad Company 2, there is a lot to be said for taking a breath and reassessing your tactics.

The environments in Bad Company 2 are open and diverse enough to allow for a range of tactics. There are always tricks, new ways to outflank and attack opponents, and new positions of strength, to learn, find or try. In open games squad members drop in and out, bringing their own abilities and ideas. For every kill you gain experience points, continually unlocking better weapons. Or you can just kill higher-ranking enemies and take theirs. Add to the impressive array of weapons an equally impressive amount of gadgets and vehicles, and you get a game that is continually fresh, exciting and surprising, even after a week of solid play.

Vehicles were a big part of the original game and Bad Company 2 promises even more. In the beta there are quad bikes, HUMVs and a couple of tanks. Driving style, like most things in the game, is totally up to the player. You can take a tank into the heart of enemy held territory, smashing barriers, strafing sniper vantage points and pounding their base, clearing the area of ground troops. Or you can find that concealed position in the hills where you can rain down destruction from a distance. In the game tactical options are fluid and success hinges as much on your opponent’s experience and reactions as it does on your own squad’s execution.

To help with the fighting you also get to choose from four available kits. Each class - Assault, Engineer, Medic and Recon - is issued with their own unique set of weapons and gadgets which upgrade depending on kills and successful missions.

The Assault kit is the standard infantryman that comes with a semi-automatic rifle, a grenade launcher, a standard issue handgun, essential for when you don’t have time to reload your rifle, and ammo packs. The Recon kit includes a sniper rifle, a sensor that tracks people and vehicles, adding their position to your mini-map and DTN-4 sticky bombs. The Engineer carries a submachine gun, rocket launcher and is able to fix and destroy vehicles while the Medic has a light machine gun, can drop health packs and revive fallen comrades with a field defibrillator.

Each class also has their trusty knife for quick melee kills that allow you to take the enemy’s dog tags, adding their names to your personal stats. Both kills and successful missions add to your experience points opening up more powerful weapons and gadgets for each class. The complete game promises over 15,000 combinations, making for an incredibly detailed and complete combat experience.

That leads to one of the main problems with the beta. There is a great leap in ability as you move through ranks. While this is an eternal problem with online games, in Bad Company 2 the ability weighting may still need work. Although there feels like little difference while moving up to level 15, meet a level 20+ enemy and you’re dead. This may be a problem solely with the beta, there may be search modes to cap ability and more ways to level up in the final version but for now the sad fact is if you find yourself outmatched you’ll be dead very quickly.

The other notable issue with the game is the lighting. While it’s an obvious choice of the developers, and adds to the dramatic and dynamic impact of the game, moving from shadow into full light is painful. The harsh contrast blinds you, making you an instant target, and the glare often makes enemies difficult to pick out even when you're sniping from a rooftop. However, this may just be an issue with the desert location of the beta. It will be interesting to see how the jungle and snow environments in the completed game look and play.

Ultimately, there are a lot of reasons to check out Bad Company 2 next year. Everything the original Bad Company did right is back and better than ever. There are more vehicles, more weapons and more gadgets and the completely destructible environments mean that your position is never secure. Once the enemy has an idea where you are its time to move out before you’re crushed beneath a collapsing building.

The tanks, the smoke and dust, the teamwork and the thrill of victory, make playing the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 online beta a real pleasure. While I died a lot and did spawn inside a concrete bunker or half buried in the sand a couple of times, it didn’t detract from an almost faultless week of online gaming. While I loved the UAV remote controlled helicopter and the Recon kit’s desert camo, I’ll be back next year to try out all the things that weren’t in the beta like the advanced laser sights, the M16s and the AH64 attack chopper. At this distance Bad Company 2 promises to be a battle to remember.

» Return to Top

NZGamer.com - Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Hands On

COMMENTS (12)

You must be logged in to post comments.

Log in to comment or Register now!

On 2 December 2009, 11:51AM Posted by nimrod76

I have the first one sitting on my shelf at home, I really need to get around to playing it.
This ones sounding good.

On 2 December 2009, 12:41PM Posted by Mach1_9pants

BFBC1 is awesome, I basically brought my XBox to play it. I am a huge BF fan, have played them all. I am getting this on all three formats.
I have the BETA on PS3 and it looks even better than all the others...

ps my KDR 20/6 in the last round :p (including an award for 50 squad spawns on me and 100 squad heals) BF is without a doubt the best squad (i.e. small bunch of friends) FPS out there.. bar none.

On 2 December 2009, 02:42PM Posted by Veen130

lol, 2/19 kill death ratio. I feel your pain, sometimes you just have a bad round.

I didn't like the first Bad Company but this one looks like a good improvement.

On 2 December 2009, 05:19PM Posted by Deanology

sounds like a good game..
I will have to have a look into this when it comes out next year.

On 2 December 2009, 10:06PM Posted by ShadowKnightFTW

Reply to nimrod76 2 December 2009, 11:51AM
I have the first one sitting on my shelf at home, I really need to get around to playing it. This ones sounding good.

Lol as do I.

On 3 December 2009, 07:26AM Posted by p-nutt3r

Looking forward to this. Never got around to playing the first (full game), I actually forgot about the game. The demo was fun.

On 3 December 2009, 01:00PM Posted by username

Reply to ShadowKnightFTW 2 December 2009, 10:06PM
Lol as do I.

I should have kept it then :P

On 3 December 2009, 06:11PM Posted by micro_hard

This game looks awesome

On 4 December 2009, 09:36AM Posted by Oliver

I'll probably pick this up even though it comes out during the busy period early next year. Modern Warfare 2 has given me a taste for FPSs and this sounds like the next best (or best?) thing. Looking forward to it.

On 7 December 2009, 09:29AM Posted by Waltman

Loved BFBC and spent many hours playing this online. A really fun game that always changes and never gets boring. I think I played the BFBC multiplayer demo for like 30 hours when that came out lol. Really looking forward to this.