Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Review (PS3)

By Hector Cortez Apr 3, 2010, 10:04 GMT

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 puts you in a squad of four as you traverse the world on a mission to find a weapon of mass destruction.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 puts you in a squad of four as you traverse the world on a mission to find a weapon of mass destruction. You are a unique group of soldiers who will stop at nothing to accomplish the mission. When others retreat, your team goes in with guns blazing.

The game starts off a bit slow and doesn't pick up until you've completed a couple levels. It's understandable that the developer (DICE) purposely designed the game this way, but it's a dangerous design choice as it may turn away many gamers with short attention spans. For those who stick with the game, it eventually ramps up the action and doesn't let up.

Although the missions aren't very intricate, with run-and-gun gameplay at its core, the game delivers an exciting experience with intense firefights. But really, what else would you expect from a military shooter? It's all familiar territory, seen in other recent shooters. Quantity (amount of enemies) over quality (of their artificial intelligence) is apparent in a majority of the game's missions.

If you're looking for a strategic shooter, Bad Company 2 is not for you. While there may be a variety of paths to take throughout each level, they eventually all converge, leading you to where the developer wants you to be. However, there is on redeeming factor: the ability to actually create your own path by destroying the environment around you, thus altering the way your squad mates and the enemy seek cover, although as I just mentioned, there isn't much strategy involved. Take cover behind a large enough object, wait for the enemy to reload their weapon, and then take them out. Repeat.

Speaking of environments, the mission locales vary greatly, from jungles to snow covered mountains, each level is incredibly detailed, complete with varying degrees of temperature which helps make certain missions more exciting. One such mission has your character abandoned on a mountain top with temperature cold enough to kill you. To avoid such a catastrophe, you must make your way from shelter to shelter (where there are lit fireplaces) before your screen is covered in frost. This visual cue is implemented ingeniously with the level of frost covering your screen increasing the closer you are to dying from hypothermia. This level leads you to actually feel fear and compassion for your character and is one of the few situations in the game that are both emotional and panic inducing.

The single player campaign also includes many vehicles to break up the monotony of on foot missions. Unfortunately, the controls are too loose. Vehicles don't handle the way they're supposed to, instead they feel like they're being driven on ice... bouncy ice.

Overall, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is an enjoyable game that will no doubt attract military shooter fans. Unfortunately, those hoping for a complete revolution, or at least an evolution, in the genre will be left a bit disappointed. Thankfully there's the immense multiplayer mode which is what will keep gamers coming back for more and is the game's main selling point as the single player campaign is over far too quickly and tends to not make much effort to differentiate itself from the competition.