Here’s another mini-review! This time we decided to check out the latest modern shooter – Bad Company 2.
Single Player
First of all if you like good stories this is the shooter for you. The whole game starts in World War II times in Japan. I won’t be going into details here (don’t wanna spoil the game for anyone) but all you need to do is kill some Japs and rescue this one guy who’s very important. Here are few shots from the beginning of the game:
As you can see the game looks absolutely amazing. Maybe it’s not as good as Crysis when it comes to visuals but on the other hand the areas around here are huge and you can blow shit up – I mean everything, from buildings and trees to ground (works in multiplayer too, but we’ll get back to that later). After that pretty short time in the WWII times the game takes you to the future in which Russians take over some parts of the world (sounds familiar?) or something like that – I didn’t really look into it that much.
What about characters in the game? Basically you’re one of four people in self-titled Bad Company. You are the one of the guys who does all the dirty work and saves the world. The modern battlefield is really good, of course missions are scripted but they aren’t as bad as the latest Call of Duty game.
Here are some non-WWII shots:
The cut-scenes in the game are really funny. Some just try to be funny but it doesn’t really matter. The best thing is that this game may look serious (the main plot, Russians, bombs etc) but it’s actually pretty fun to play. Maybe it’s not as dramatic as Call of Duty games or really old Medal of Honor games but it is enjoyable.
Here’s one cut-scene (in Polish) – contains spoilers!
Some missions are kind of long, some are fast and packed with action.
The graphic engine is rather ok in the meaning of performance. True, the beta sucked, seriously sucked, people with powerful modern machines had FPS drops to 10FPS on the Valdez map. But believe me after you update your copy (takes a while, patch is nearly 1GB big) the game works amazingly better – there are slow downs in smoke or huge explosions but maybe DICE will fix it.
On my pretty old rig the game runs ok on medium settings, anti aliasing x 2 and V-Sync off – I get around 30-60 FPS on FullHD resolution, sometimes less when you’re in the middle of exploding houses or something but it adds to the realism ;-)
Now lets take a look at the interface.
It’s very…bad. I mean it works (most of the time) and looks decent but there are random lockups (just try to refresh the server browser many times lol) and sometimes it just stops responding. But again I think they are working on it as I write this and will eventually add some missing options.
What about sound? It’s just perfect. Every explosion is crystal clear and sounds like you are there – on the battlefield. Gunshots are very good (shotguns, silenced, sniper rifles, assault rifles). The lines in the game are extremely powerful and they contain a lot of fucks, shits and mother fuckers (even in the Polish localized version). Stuff like “Take out that mother fucker!” is here all the time – even online.
And yes this game has dedicated servers. Although there are some stability problems with the game stats, logging in but that’s due to the huge popularity of the game – EA authorization servers just die sometimes.
Now lets get to the best part: The Multiplayer.
You’ll find a few modes in the game, the best are probably rush and conquest. Plus some other squad and team based death matches.
Here’s what DICE’s Gordon Van Dyke said about the game mechanics (source: Voodoo Extreme):
“We’ve actually focused on that [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][the squad mechanic] and made huge improvements to that area to make it more unique to the characters,”
…
“So two guys can squad up together and they can lock that squad and make it private, so that they can focus on playing together as a team. They don’t have to have four people, and they can also manage that team so they can join together and create their own squad.
…
“You’re no longer forced into a squad like in Bad Company 1. It’s very similar to what we did in 1943.”
Ok lets just wrap this up. How would I rate this game?
I’d give it 4,5/5 – just because of connection problems.
Just go and buy this. The retail version can be installed on 10 machines but you can only play on one machine at a time. We of course do not recommend buying this on Steam if you live in Europe because it’s totally unacceptable – even when you get the four pack. You can always unregister the retail version of the game if you want (with right click on Windows 7 for example). The key is assigned to your EA account.
Right now it’s the best shooter out there and I mean for all platforms – PC, XboX 360 and PS3.
Modern Warfare 2 sucks.
See you in-game! Oh and join our Mumble channel if you’re playing Bad Company 2 and we can team up. English or Polish preferred.
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