The cliché 'game of two halves' normally conjures up images of classic football comebacks, but after staggering through
the glaringly uneven single-player campaign in Bad Company 2, twenty-four hours after spending a whole day solidly playing the superb multiplayer component, there's hardly a more apt description of DICE's wannabe CoD-killer. Because, despite the sterling efforts of the men from Stockholm, if you're coming to this for your lonesome combat kicks, you're going to be massively, desperately disappointed. This is all about the online game.
As with any true disappointment, though, the awful truth isn't always immediately apparent and after a (quite literal) A-Bomb of an opening, it's obvious Bad Company 2 isn't afraid to show off its new armoury of tech tricks.
An early mission sees our team of misfits, dumped by narked superiors on routine Alaskan border patrol, hounded through a winter wonderland by evil Russian troops. Armed to the teeth with rockets, grenades and a bloody great tank they pummel a sleepy village into oblivion. Even when you're dying, re-dying and dying again* it's hard not to get excited about the evolution of their Destruction 2.0 feature. There's nowhere to run, and rarely anywhere to hide... at least for more than a few scant seconds. Darting between ever-diminishing bits of rubble, we gawped as entire buildings shuddered to the ground - with us in them. Dying taught us to innovate, to create fresh cover points and sniper nests by punching holes in buildings and roofs, to chip away at enemy positions... DICE were offering us an all-new way to wage war, and - even if we occasionally got stuck in the rubble-strewn scenery - we were digging it. When we weren't digging our way out of it, of course.
Yet if the scene was set for grand adventure, what followed felt like a wet mackerel to the face. A litany of schoolboy errors and missed opportunities, Bad Company 2's campaign soon tails off alarmingly, stealing tricks from almost every rival shooter in the book while conspiring to continually bungle the execution.
FISH 'N' BLIPS Case in point: being handed a pistol to save a superior who's been taken hostage by a retreating Russian - and capping him. It could have been ripped straight out of the original Modern Warfare's Mile High Club mission. This was preceded by a shootout that not only visually resembled but played out near identically to the original Gears of War's bloodbath on the steps of the Fenix mansion in Jacinto. The ensuing operation saw us helming a chopper's minigun in a sequence that could have been plucked straight from Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter... if it hadn't already been left on Ubisoft Paris' cutting room floor for not being up to scratch. There's also a jungle boat trip that screams Modern Warfare 2, a turgid sniper section that unfortunately recalls the masterly Ghillies In The Mist and... well, you get the idea.
Even worse, when Bad Company 2 does attempt to innovate it falls flat on its face. Chief suspect is the 'Surviving the Storm' mission, where you're stranded in the middle of a raging, poorly rendered snowstorm and have to dart between buildings to warm yourself beside roaring hearths or else your HUD ices up and you freeze to death. It's an incredibly silly idea, awfully implemented - not least because it's here where it first becomes apparent that, for whatever reason, you can't actually open doors; instead you have to conveniently shatter them into a billion splinters, thus alerting any pesky Russians lurking inside.
Another inadvertent bit of bum-flavoured bungling occurred at the climax of a foray into the Atacama desert, where after a deathly dull vehicle section (and you'd better get used to those if you've already blagged yourself a copy) solving an environmental puzzle inadvertently reduced our quad bike to a twisted arrangement of useless junk, leaving us with a comically lengthy on-foot slog-o-thon through the sands to make it to mission's end, where - hilariously - there was a brand new quad bike waiting for us. Yeah, cheers. Furthermore, some of the missions are simply flat-out terrible, like protecting a satellite (actually a nondescript blackish texture) from spawning rocket-launcher toting villains, before picking up a yet another handily-placed RPG to repel yet another lurking Russian gunship. What's the opposite of 'scintillating'? Whatever it is, it's on show here.
DEMOLITION MOB Still, if the majority of the increasingly funnelled level design is average at best, at least the gunplay is relatively solid and satisfying. Almost all the multiplayer arsenal makes an appearance, and while the actual thrill of the kill never gets close to emulating the lofty heights of Modern Warfare 2, the Destruction 2.0 mechanics certainly encourage some novel tactics.
Even speaking as the High Priests of Blammo, however, Bad Company 2 is arguably too bombastic, and certainly lacking in any sort of subtlety. Take-downs through walls seem inconsistent; better to simply lob a grenade and bring half the building crashing down. The embarrassing amounts of bright red, explosive barrels are testament to the game's lack of originality, but also its willingness to get down and destructive - sometimes, though, even the placement of these is completely baffling (On a veranda? Right at the top of a tenement? Really?). And don't get us started on the dopey AI enemies who somehow possess an unerring accuracy that leaves you feeling like a day-glo bullet magnet. It's especially apparent during snowy or sandy levels when you can't see jack but are meticulously picked off time and again by rafts of rockets and laser-guided gunfire.
And yet, you can see DICE have really tried. They've obviously listened to feedback: the whole game is bigger (but not necessarily better), a lot of the chief niggles from the first BC have been ironed out (only to be replaced by new ones) and the game looks shinier (though strangely jaggier). Ultimately, though, single-player campaigns shouldn't be concocted by multiplayer maestros. You only have to look to Infinity Ward for what appears to be the perfect system - both sides of the coin are forged by distinctly separate teams. DICE just don't seem to have any idea how to frame a story and present their action; when you die (which will be a lot) you just sort of fade out. When you beat a level, it sort of... fades out. Cut-scenes jar, and lack emotional impact. It all boils down to a massive anti-climax. And a note to whoever designed the generic enemy soldiers that populate the game (our undoubted favourites being, in no particular order, big hat man, red beret man and balaclava man): the whole point of a generic enemy is not to make him stand out.
We haven't even mentioned the titular B Company yet. So how are Messrs Redford, Marlowe, Sweetwater and Haggard? Well, near anonymous really. The original game's frat boy humour might have split fans, but it was the otherwise listless campaign's strongest, and most memorable, suite. The humour's taken a backseat here, replaced by an ultra bland 'stop the super weapon before it's too late' tone, and now the team simply feel out of place with their super-serious 'save the world' antics. Our advice: stick to the awesome online mode.
Rob Taylor
Multiplayer
Granted, it's clear that Battlefield: Bad Company's campaign mode is a ripe old stink bomb, but happily that's only half (actually, a lot less than half) the story. The sensible among you are here to see how multiplayer turned out - and the good news is it's turned out brilliantly. And, yes, that's 'at times even more brilliant than Modern Warfare 2' brilliant.
Battlefield's obviously got a long-standing heritage in the online arena but, cognisant of Infinity Ward's clear and present danger, this definitely feels like a fresh experience - far slicker and more developed than any of its predecessors. (We suspect the fact it's also the first Battlefield on PC for yonks is partly responsible for this.) The classes have seen a reshuffle and score bonuses encourage you to swap between them rather than stick with your timeworn favourites. As a result, there are major boons for picking a vulnerable Medic rather than an all-action Assault grunt, and the first time we actually managed to defibrillate a dying comrade, patch him up and send him back into the maelstrom we beamed with pride - as well as copping a whopping bundle of XP. We also loved the way you can now swap classes more or less on the fly - stumble upon a dead comrade's gear and by swiping it you 'become' him. Well, it's certainly better than having to die to change over...
Aside from the 'hardcore' mode (it was bugged up in our review build - we'll follow up with a status report in the coming months), we played multiplayer half to death, and here are our most beloved modes to prove it...
SQUAD RUSH The new game mode DICE seemed most proud of, and with good reason. We played this on two distinct maps - the devastated town of Valparaiso and watery Port Valdez. One team of four defend a series of buildings armed with explosive devices, the other team attempts to detonate said bombs. Cue a riotously paced scramble that involves both squads having to combine talents and work in tandem to achieve their target. Destruction 2.0 adds depth to proceedings - you might think it's a great idea to bomb a hut to kingdom come, thus demolishing the walls and granting easy access to the explosives inside. But what happens once you've armed the bomb and have to prevent it from being disarmed? Without walls to protect you from irked enemies, you're basically cannon fodder. Makes you think, this one.
SQUAD DEATHMATCH The old favourite, which we played out with four lots of four-man squads on the bustling Arica Harbour and snowy Whit Pass maps. To spice things up, there was always just one vehicle lying about (usually a tank), with the squad that assumed control of it most quickly tending to go on frustratingly extended killing sprees. That said, it was also a chance for any brave Engineers to whack up their XP meters by successfully planting a bundle of C4. As we accomplished certain in-mission mini tasks, like rescuing comrades or racking up a certain number of headshots, all sorts of new weapon and equipment unlocks started to become available. Accumulate enough XP and, like most multiplayer shooters nowadays, you'll also gain ranks with new perks. Again, these maps were expertly designed, featuring just the right balance of co-op tactics (and selfish, in-it-for-yourself ones) needed to win through.
CONQUEST Two teams - the US and Russians - compete in a Battle Royale to gain and maintain control of four key map areas - by planting and raising their own individual flags. The two levels we played on, Panama Canal and Atacama Desert, were sprawling affairs packed with vehicles ranging from quad bikes to tanks and even helicopters. With people scrapping and dying all about us, missiles whooshing past our heads and levelling buildings, watching troops parachuting out of 'copters to chase us across the map, this was Bad Company 2 at its absolute genre-topping best: crazy all-out warfare on a huge scale. Irresistible - just like every aspect of this stellar online experience.
// Overview
Verdict
A plain bad single-player mode - but a Grade A brilliant multiplayer. Difficult one to score.
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Five-star multiplayer
