Battlefield: Bad Company 2

8.0

Format Xbox 360

Developer DICE

Publisher EA Games

Genre First Person Shooter

19 Comments

There's a dream out there among gamers. Not the dream of a unified console that would put an end to tears spilt over the harsh words of forum wars - that's just unrealistic.

Rather, the dream of total destruction: puncturing holes in walls with explosives and blowing up doors when keys can't be found. We're used to claymores, rocket launchers, C4, RPGs and the like. What we're not used to is blowing anything up besides enemies, cars and that suspicious red barrel.

We dream of a world where anything turns to rubble and dust under the force of our explosive arsenal and Battlefield: Bad Company met us halfway, letting you blow up anything you saw, provided you had the necessary explosives for it.

Advertisement:

So it's not really a surprise to see that the sequel meets that dream halfway again, as well as taking one step further. It's not a big step, mind you - stairways still remain curiously impervious to explosions, building frameworks are able to survive nuclear blasts and the game is framed by invulnerable concrete - but you're happily thrown more toys to cause destruction with.

The old crew have returned to deal with the tricky business of the Russians invading the US, and they do so mostly by blowing stuff up. Subtle, this game is not. What's different here is that there's a confidence that was sometimes missing from the original.

In Battlefield: Bad Company, DICE seemed hesitant at times, offering you a brand new playground to blow up, but still reluctantly prodding you along the same old go-here-kill-them mission parameters - as though anything else would be one radical innovation too many.

It's a thought process that still lingers in places, but here it's been well concealed by strafing helicopter runs, assaults in freezing weather where you need to keep warm, sniping patrols, blowing up buildings to create your own entrance, and deadly races on top of wintry mountains.

Yet while fun, the open-ended nature of the combat means DICE rarely finds the framework to conjure up any breathtaking set-pieces. While the likes of Call of Duty and Gears of War lead you into bottlenecks where they can dazzle you with explosions and special effects, Bad Company 2 feels more like a diluted sprawl of ideas across a large canvas.

This variety ensures things stay interesting but it makes it a solid rather than spectacular effort. You'll enjoy it, but will find that you struggle to recall any standout moments once the credits finally roll.

Instead, it's left to the multiplayer half of BC2 to supply the most spectacular moments. The original's Gold Rush didn't quite catch on in the same way that Conquest did, while the latter mode was added after the maps were completed and so didn't quite fit its new home.

No such problems here. The maps are brilliant and work across all modes, while Squad Rush is the highlight of the new additions - sacrificing some tactical nuance to cram more action in. The destruction angle is curiously underplayed for the most part and yet works really well when it is brought into use - players blowing holes through walls to fashion their own paths, snipers creating their own spots to shoot from and so on.

Destruction tends to get lost among the fast pace and carnage but watching maps slowly crumble and warp under the constant bombardment of tank shells and missiles is something of a sight to behold. So while Battlefield: Bad Company 2 has improved in single-player, it's the leap in multiplayer that makes it worth the reinvestment.

Ryan King