LO3: Task 1 - Review - Battlefield: Bad Company 2

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Review

Price: £25.00 [Amazon]

Platform: Xbox 360

Rating: PEGI 16

Developer: EA Digital Illusions 

Publisher: EA

Engine: Frostbite 1.5

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is a first person military shooter (This is not to be confused with the original battlefield games 1,2,3,4 as this is a separate story line completely unrelated). Featuring all sorts of military style actions from shooting down helicopters with under-barrel grenade launchers to disguising snipers shots in the lightning.  Following the typical military style action and conventions found in all modern shooters. However where Bad company stands out in comparison to other games on the market is it narrative and heavily engaging mass online multiplayer (which was outstanding for its time).

Bad company follows the story of Preston Marlowe a member of the division know as “Bad Company”.  As they accidently uncover the truth behind a hidden operation knows as “Aurora” used during the final days of WW2. 
The gameplay changes through each environment allowing some mission to be heavily vehicular based and others taking place in tight buildings heavily reliant on CQC.  The narrative allows this as the story  takes place in different places worldwide as you uncover bits of truth in all corners of the world featuring environments like the desert, arctic and jungle.
The majority of the game you spend with the team bad company which are heavily developed on throughout the game (and you will know more if you played the original Bad Company game). Meaning you treat nearly ever encounter as a hostile situation.
The story connects with the audience by giving you situations typically given in modern shooters, such as intense gun fights. But the story also gives the characters personalities that are also given to other characters in modern games; however the cats of bad company are like two-dimensional and hold some interesting and humorous conversations even in the mists of battle appealing to its target audience.

The main production process for most of the games animation is motion capture.

Skeleton  - Motion capture

Animated skeleton – Render

Environmental Design – Animate it, render

As this is a military shooter it features a variety of tools at your disposal that are supposedly carried by military soldiers. However one of the biggest selling points and main features of the Bad Company series is its use of vehicles which can range from sand-buggies to fully armoured apache helicopters. These elements will be specifically enhanced to make gameplay more enjoyable and realistic.

As vehicles like helicopters are used psychics mechanics are very important, especially since the battlefield series is known for sense of realism. The games sense of realism is quite impressive (especially for its time) featuring things that real soldiers would have to do like account for bullet drop while firing from a distance and destructible environments this means the game mechanics are heavily developed to make sure this works especially when playing the online multiplayer.

The bad company team include Redford your sergeant who’s only motivation to do anything is his retirement. Sweetwater who has the persona of a typical nerd/loser. Haggard the gun slinging redneck and your character Preston Marlowe, who is very dull, quiet character that only inputs very occasionally. Out of all the characters though he carries the most common sense and quickest reaction time making him a perfect character to be the main. These character are pretty much the embodiment of army stereotypes, however are original enough to be entertaining who has tonnes of character development and making then strong, relevant and appealing to the target audience.

Bad Company features challenging and intense gunfights with destructible environments and difficult mission like “Defend object A” which can be very hard especially on higher difficulties. The games online multiplayer varies in challenge depending on your skill as a player and your opponents skill.

The game engages the player with story driven gameplay in the single player campaign featuring huge variety that engages the player and highly addictive competitive online multiplayer that engages the player by presenting the challenge of showing your skill as a player against each other.

The gameplay drives the narrative forward as sequences like chases are key to the story that engages the player giving you a sense of urgency and tensions when playing the game.

As I have said a multitude of times if it’s one thing this game has is its variety in gameplay that consistently changes throughout that never reuses sequences adding something new to the experience each time which engages the player.

Bad company’s target audience are people interested in heavy first person action shooters, mass online multiplayer games or just the bad company series itself. The indication of this been its references to the previous game including the same cast and weapons. The intense realistic gunplay is that of a action orientated first person shooter that would be enjoyed by any military first person shooter fan and outstanding online multiplayer featuring a huge variety of vehicle equipment and weaponry not seen in this variety of a long time or ever before in some comparisons.  This means that battlefield knows its target audience and directly appeals to them.

In comparison to its predecessor this improves on this it in nearly every aspect featuring  huge variety in environment, weapon variety, story (for a military shooter). Battlefield: Bad company 2 was at the height of its genre at the time is this is clearly evident from playing the game through multiple times.

The game is multiplatform featuring on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. PC is probably the most suitable for a performance perspective as graphics can be up scaled and general speed of the game can be faster (all depending on your PC’s specs). However consoles are more available and are considerably cheaper to the mass market. Therefore I would personally recommend it on PlayStation 3 of Xbox 360.

Even though this game has aged now the game still is an amazing experience both on single player campaign and the multi-player, which I highly recommend over the current battlefield entries, even though it is a little old school in comparison.