Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is an army-style 1st-person shooter. You are Marlowe, one of the guys in the Bad Company, sent out to do the army's dirty work for cheap to pay off your debts to society.
If you want to save your time by not reading an admittedly rather mundane review, you can sum it all up with "it's an army shooter... well, that's it."
Gameplay: 8.0
Unique gameplay concepts - What drives the game, and what is it similar to?
Bad Company is another military shooter that does basically the same thing as a game like Modern Warfare 2. They have good design throughout their campaign levels to try to give a different set of challenges and a wide array of gameplay objectives to reduce the amount of the game being nothing but pointing and shooting.
Honestly, it gets mixed in too easily with all of the military shooters. It's a fun game, but hardly any of it is all that memorable.
Since the first game they've had their pseudo-destructible environments, where you can blast away walls and trees with heavy gunfire or explosions. That always provides for a good bit of eye candy, but not a ton of tactical value.
They also have some pretty typical things throughout their campaign like collecting new weapons, and driving vehicles or calling in air strikes.
Multiplayer is pretty straightforward, too. You're on one team, kill the other team. Typical objective games and typical army-style combat. There's really not a ton to say about it.
Overall, it knows what kind of game it is and does a good job at being a fun game with solid fundamentals. Nothing is going to jump out and grab you, or leave you with much of a lasting impression outside of their audio, visuals and maybe a story arc or two.
Presentation: 10.0
Graphical and audio presentation (animation, texturing, overall look & artistic style)
The game not only looks great, but has the most spectacular sound effects among any game I've played.. maybe ever.
Theatrics: 8.0
Story, Dialogue, Cut-Scenes and Artistic Use of Camera
The settings in each of their map tell a decent story by themselves, whether you're taking a role as an isolated sniper in the rain, running from hut to hut in freezing weather, or just blasting dudes in the jungle.
If you asked me right now what the story was about, since it's been a month or so since I've played the campaign, I honestly couldn't tell you without having to look it up. The overall story actually isn't all that memorable, but I do remember it being told better than the 1st Bad Company. Their cut-scenes are a lot more cinematic and they flow really well with the dialogue and the character's actions.
Overall the story is okay. It's essentially a bunch of missions designed with unique ideas behind them, and a story sort of stringing them all together. The final mission and the cool bit of theatrics involved was fun, though.
Controls: 9.0
Ease of Use and Smoothness of Controls
The first Bad Company game had THE worst driving controls I've seen in a game in a long time. They did a really good job of cleaning that up and making the game fun to play without being frustrating.
Replay Value: 7.0
Total Gameplay Time versus Expected
I typically don't care for military shooters, and this game is going to get lost in the mix of them all when it's said and done. It's a good game. Playing through the campaign once, a couple of levels an extra time and maybe 5-10 multiplayer games was enough for me. The campaign has a decent amount of gameplay to it and I probably got 20 hours out of it.
Fun: 8.0
What were the most and least fun parts of the game? Overall, how much fun is the game?
The game is pretty level overall - no huge spikes in fun and no drops either. There were very few instances in the game that were outstanding and unusually fun (running house to house in the snow with a shotgun was pretty good), but there's really not a lot to say about it. It's a good game. No more, no less.
My Overall Rating: 8.2
Complexity Level: Little learning for vets. Gaming veterans will pick this game up and play it pretty well with almost no problems. Inexperienced users might need a little time to adjust to some of their controls and gameplay mechanics.
If you want to save your time by not reading an admittedly rather mundane review, you can sum it all up with "it's an army shooter... well, that's it."
Gameplay: 8.0
Unique gameplay concepts - What drives the game, and what is it similar to?
Bad Company is another military shooter that does basically the same thing as a game like Modern Warfare 2. They have good design throughout their campaign levels to try to give a different set of challenges and a wide array of gameplay objectives to reduce the amount of the game being nothing but pointing and shooting.
Honestly, it gets mixed in too easily with all of the military shooters. It's a fun game, but hardly any of it is all that memorable.
Since the first game they've had their pseudo-destructible environments, where you can blast away walls and trees with heavy gunfire or explosions. That always provides for a good bit of eye candy, but not a ton of tactical value.
They also have some pretty typical things throughout their campaign like collecting new weapons, and driving vehicles or calling in air strikes.
Multiplayer is pretty straightforward, too. You're on one team, kill the other team. Typical objective games and typical army-style combat. There's really not a ton to say about it.
Overall, it knows what kind of game it is and does a good job at being a fun game with solid fundamentals. Nothing is going to jump out and grab you, or leave you with much of a lasting impression outside of their audio, visuals and maybe a story arc or two.
Presentation: 10.0
Graphical and audio presentation (animation, texturing, overall look & artistic style)
The game not only looks great, but has the most spectacular sound effects among any game I've played.. maybe ever.
Theatrics: 8.0
Story, Dialogue, Cut-Scenes and Artistic Use of Camera
The settings in each of their map tell a decent story by themselves, whether you're taking a role as an isolated sniper in the rain, running from hut to hut in freezing weather, or just blasting dudes in the jungle.
If you asked me right now what the story was about, since it's been a month or so since I've played the campaign, I honestly couldn't tell you without having to look it up. The overall story actually isn't all that memorable, but I do remember it being told better than the 1st Bad Company. Their cut-scenes are a lot more cinematic and they flow really well with the dialogue and the character's actions.
Overall the story is okay. It's essentially a bunch of missions designed with unique ideas behind them, and a story sort of stringing them all together. The final mission and the cool bit of theatrics involved was fun, though.
Controls: 9.0
Ease of Use and Smoothness of Controls
The first Bad Company game had THE worst driving controls I've seen in a game in a long time. They did a really good job of cleaning that up and making the game fun to play without being frustrating.
Replay Value: 7.0
Total Gameplay Time versus Expected
I typically don't care for military shooters, and this game is going to get lost in the mix of them all when it's said and done. It's a good game. Playing through the campaign once, a couple of levels an extra time and maybe 5-10 multiplayer games was enough for me. The campaign has a decent amount of gameplay to it and I probably got 20 hours out of it.
Fun: 8.0
What were the most and least fun parts of the game? Overall, how much fun is the game?
The game is pretty level overall - no huge spikes in fun and no drops either. There were very few instances in the game that were outstanding and unusually fun (running house to house in the snow with a shotgun was pretty good), but there's really not a lot to say about it. It's a good game. No more, no less.
My Overall Rating: 8.2
Complexity Level: Little learning for vets. Gaming veterans will pick this game up and play it pretty well with almost no problems. Inexperienced users might need a little time to adjust to some of their controls and gameplay mechanics.
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