Game rating: Battlefield:BadCompany2 (SP)

[deadman1]

Game title
Battlefield:BadCompany2 (SP)

Category	Rating	Comments
Story line	6	In 1945 the japanese army have developed a superweapon. Now 60 years later a russian renegade general has got his hands on it and it´s up to your team to stop him and destroy the weapon before he can lay waist to the US. The game starts with you playing as a member of a group of marines tasked with finding a japanese scientist who has the plans for this weapon and getting him to a submarine off the coast. This storyline is as believable as most others in games of this type, the missions you get are logical given the story. Maybe it´s just me but I always have a hard time to find myself really immersed in the storyline of the game I´m playing, no matter what the game is.
Graphics	9	The graphics are really good, they don´t have the stunning beauty of  FC2 or Crysis but the look really good. The environment you play in varies from the frozen tundra of Russia to the hot humid djungels of South America with a bit of desert in between. All of witch are done with real care, the winter maps have snowdrifts that obscures your vision. While in the desert it´s the windblown sand does the same. One has to remeber though that this is a game that like Crysis for instance really needs a highend computer to really look it´s best, although it´s not nearly as hard on the hardware as Crysis was.
Sound	9	The voice acting is excellent and so is the writing, many times while playing I found myself smiling widly and a couple of times even laughing out loud at the comments my teammates would make in certain situations. The enviromental sounds are on par with rest, in the desert you hear the wind that´s constantly moving the sand around and in the djungel the birds are singing and the leaves are rustling just like the would if you were really there. I havent´t listened to the music yet because I always find it distracting to have music playing when ppl are trying to kill me :P, but I´ll may fire up the SP and check out one of these days.
Game play	8	This game feels a lot less linear than most games in the genre like Medal of Honor or Call of Duty. Eventhough you get those typical "invisible" walls from time to time, you have a lot more freedom to flank your enemies and so on. All this makes for a very nice gameplay experience. The AI is quite good, your enemies will use cover and flanking manouvers while fighting and when you step up in difficulty there aim will improve. A good thing is that they do wear real bodyarmor, unlike FC2:s mercs so when you need to unload a half magazine into one it´s perfectly logical. No magical white t-shirts here :P
Replay value	5	The replay value I have to say is only average. All the levels/maps are the same every time, the enemies shows up in exactly the same spots and in roughly the same number every time you play through it. The only thing that might make you want to play again are the collectibles and the so called M-com stations. On most of the maps there are certain weapons that are marked as a collectible which you can find either in boxes or in the hands of enemies, these don´t serve any other purpose than to be collected by you and either used in the game or left behind. The M-coms are a kind of large radioset that walk up and press your use button to arm a built-in selfdestruct charge. There are between 2-4 of them on some of the maps, they are actually something you use in the MP part of the game that the devs threw in for some reason. You don´t get any reward for finding all of the collectibles or destroying the M-coms so once that´s you really have no reason to play the game. I´ll elaborate on that in my summary.

Final thoughts
One thing has to be made clear from the start. BFBC2 is a MP game first and foremost. The developer DICE are experts at MP games and all the other games in the BF series have been MP only ( I´m not sure about BFBC1 since that one was console exclusive). The fact that the SP are quite good I think speaks a lot for the skill of the ppl that works there. If you´re not interested in the MP part of the game the I would suggest you wait until you find it in the bargain bin. However having said that, if you´re anything like me then buy it, I´ve spent nearly every night playing BC2 MP and I´m enjoying immensly. The gameplay is fast and very challenging (I die a lot!!), there are several different gamemodes which provides there own unique challenges. To summarize my summary, I give the SP a 8 of 10 and the MP 10 of 10.

[Art Blade]

That's a nice rating, cheers  :) :-X

[deadman1]

Thanks mate  :)

[PZ]

What a funny coincidence - I was just asking my son about BBC - he is very fond of the MP, but said that in his opinion, I'd be disappointed in the SP version, which your review supports - such a shame that my Internet connection does not allow MP.

Excellent review - thanks  :-X

[JRD]

Indeed, great review and thanks for the rating!  :-X

Just like PZ, I read and heard many oppinions regarding the SP part of BFBC2 and all pointed to a MP directed game with great action but with a very poor SP campaign.  ????

[PZ]

As an aside, these reviews are very useful to me - because there are specific form elements that you are asked to complete, the reviews are concise, and include just about everything you need to know about a game.

[deadman1]

I found the SP trailer so here´s a glimpse of whaat I´m talking about:

http://www.fz.se/filmer/20100125/battlefield-bad-company-2-singleplayer-trailer/

[Art Blade]

The graphics look really  nice  ??? :-X

I watched vids for the first episode and thought the dialogue and characters were cool and funny, a pity it was console exclusive, BF:BC1. However, BC2 apparently isn't that funny which is a shame.

[spaceboy]

What a funny coincidence - I was just asking my son about BBC - he is very fond of the MP

I joined your son in a squad last night - I had been fighting the emporer to no avail in Force Unleashed when he invited me...so a little BC action sounded fun.  The matches we had were almost all lopsided.  A slow Monday night I guess.   The first one we were in our team had pushed back the other team to their spawn, eventually everyone on that team quit except for one guy.   I spent the down time waiting for the match to end trying to drive an ATV up a flight of stairs  - I got it done though!  Now that's a game, even with no one to shoot you can still entertain yourself!

[Art Blade]

 :-D

[PZ]

...I joined your son in a squad last night - I had been fighting the emporer to no avail in Force Unleashed when he invited me...so a little BC action sounded fun.  The matches we had were almost all lopsided.  A slow Monday night I guess.   The first one we were in our team had pushed back the other team to their spawn, eventually everyone on that team quit except for one guy.   I spent the down time waiting for the match to end trying to drive an ATV up a flight of stairs  - I got it done though!  Now that's a game, even with no one to shoot you can still entertain yourself!

Yeah, he had mentioned that he'd invited you to a match a couple of times and was hoping that you could join his squad.  Evidently his squad contains a few experienced players.