Hands-On: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

The PC beta version of one of eGamer’s most anticipated titles this year, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, was released only a few days ago, on the 28th of January 2010, and since then I’ve been hellishly addicted to it, while simultaneously being addicted to Mass Effect 2. Luckily, I managed to complete Mass Effect 2 before I went on a Bad Company 2 rampage, so for those who never really got the chance to play the beta yet and for those who have played and are eager to see some opinions, here is my experience with the online beta of Bad Company 2.

Name: Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Genre: First Person Shooter
Players: 1-?
Multiplayer: Online Multiplayer (up to 32 players), Offline LAN
Platforms: PC, PS3, Xbox360
Developers: EA Digital Illusions CE
Publishers: Electronic Arts (EA)
Release Date: 2-5 March 2010

Battlefield: Bad Company 2, the latest entry in both the Battlefield and Bad Company series’, is due to release right at the beginning of March, and we really can’t wait for it. After playing the Beta version of the game on PC, I’ve gotten a few mixed opinions, but there’s a damn lot of positives as far as gameplay is concerned. Right, so first things first, in order to get playing the Beta you would have had to have had gotten your hands on a beta key, as well as downloaded the install client, which is approximately 1.5GB in size. The beta is still going on, and eGamer recently had a giveaway where we sent out a fair amount of beta keys to our readers. Anyway, once you have done the above, installed the game, entered your beta key in and created an account, you’re ready to play.

In the beta, there are no single player options, you’re only able to play online, play with the options, such as controls, graphics settings and such, and check out your personal stats and unlocked weapons and gadgets. The good part is that participating in the beta allows you to keep your name in the full game, but unfortunately, I don’t think you will be carrying over your unlocks. Anyway, we’re lucky enough to have South African servers up, thanks to both iGame and SGS, so it was great to play delay free. Unfortunately though, the server browser was really slow, partially because there were some online problems while I was playing the beta, but it was still relatively easy to get into a game, provided you had some patience.

There is only one map and one game mode available in the beta. The map is a large, awesomely designed, snowy environment named Port Valdez. The game mode was set to Rush, an objective-based mode that named one team as the “attackers” and the other as the “defenders”. In this mode, the attackers are required to blow up pairs of M-COM stations in order to advance on the defenders and take them down, while the defenders need to prevent the attackers from blowing up the stations until the round ends – which is when the attackers run out of reinforcements. Attackers can blow up the objective by manually setting a charge on it or by means of other explosives, like C4. Rush proved to be a very tense and exciting game mode, especially because the defenders can disarm charges once they’re set, and objective areas could turn into killing fields while players desperately try to blow up or protect the objectives.

Right, so this is Battlefield, despite it having a different name, meaning that you’re in for a class based online first person shooter, with lots of emphasis on the “class” side of things. There are 4 classes in Bad Company 2, namely Assault, Engineer, Medic and Recon. You must be thinking, why only four classes? Well, that’s because not only have a couple of classes been combined, such as anti-tank from Battlefield 2 and Engineer, but each class has a lot of depth to them and awesome, unique styles of play. Additionally, aside from the many, many weapons available to unlock, both class specific and universal (any class can use them), there are also gadgets and specialisations to acquire, both of which are also class specific and universal. Specialisations are basically your special add-ons, like scopes, and enhancement perks, while gadgets are your trusty C4s, mortars and Anti-vehicle mines. Trust me, there is a great deal to unlock in Bad Company 2, and this is all in addition to your actual rank.

Gameplay wise, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is truly awesome. You will truly feel as though you’ve been thrown into a war, right from the moment you spawn, having to parachute down into battle, to the moment you’re dodging explosions and gunfire. I haven’t seen many games capture the intensity and feel of war like this game does, and Bad Company 2 pulls it off on par with the likes of Killzone 2. This is further aided by the spectacular destructive environment, that adds so much realism and intensity to the game it’s scary. Trees will collapse, buildings will be torn apart and things will just be exploding, to put it simply and literally. The drawback though, is that because of the war zone feel, the game can often feel overly chaotic, especially when there are countless explosions going off, numerous tanks and helicopters closing in and the environment breaking. I suppose that the really large map you play in makes up for this somewhat.

The other issue is that Bad Company 2 is quite a monster of a PC game. At the end of this article, you will find the system requirements, but just so you know, I was playing it on a rig equipped with an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.67 GHz, an ATI HD 4850 512mb Graphics Card and 4GB Ram and the game was quite stucky and laggy on medium-high settings, so, to avoid messing around too much, since it was irritating to leave a game and keep coming back in, I just set the settings quite low in order to play very smoothly.

I must say that the weapons are definitely one of the highlights of the game. It feels spectacular to fire almost all of the guns, and it’s only made better by the really realistic feel of the weapons. I had tons of fun with the sniper rifles in particular, because, despite the fact that sniping is really challenging, the power behind each shot and way your scope looks and moves when you aim down it is fantastic. Admittedly, it can be frustrating sometimes when you hit someone multiple times and don’t get your expected kill, especially with sniper rifles, but as far as sniping satisfaction is concerned, Bad Company 2 is great. Perhaps a few tweaks to Sniper rifles will fix my issue with them, but hey, that’s just my opinion, and it does teach you to go for headshots which is good. Otherwise, the guns are overall really great. If you played the first Bad Company, you would have quite an idea of how they shoot and feel, but if you didn’t, then you can expect a really nice surprise. I can’t really comment on balance yet, because I didn’t really have lots of time with the game and it’s the beta, so for now I think we all just want to play it and have fun before the serious business starts.

All the nuts and bolts are included in the PC version it seems, such as fully customisable controls and voice chat. Unfortunately though, the earlier-promised prone feature didn’t end up getting put in the PC version, so no crawling around on your stomach in Bad Company 2. Perhaps it was for the best, since the maps are quite large, and prone would make it really hard to see enemies. I mean, maybe it’s just the map in the beta, but it can be quite tough to spot enemies in the background sometimes.

As you would expect, progressing online revolves around experience points, which are earned by kills, completing challenges and objectives, meeting certain criteria and, in Bad Company 2′s case, for loads of other things, even damaging vehicles. Points earned go towards unlocking new weapons and leveling you up ranks, but the catch is that points aren’t universal when it comes to classes. What this means is that in order to gain points to unlock, let’s say a new sniper rifle, you’ll have to be playing the Recon class to gain experience for Recon. It’s a great system, because it not only makes it more organised to hunt for what you want and settle on a class that suits you, but it also lets you get to know each class, because you can play with all classes in one game and gain points for all at the end. Essentially, with this system you become keen to try out new things and experiment with the classes – or play all of them simultaneously.

As far as vehicles in Bad Company 2 are concerned, in the beta map you have access to tanks, those one-seat mini, fast cars, APCs and helicopters. Additionally, there are stationary machine guns and missile launchers around the map for anyone to mount and use, in case your weapons are failing you. I didn’t spend much time in vehicles, and my first attempt at flying a helicopter resulted in complete and utter failure, so all I can tell you really is that they’re exactly what you would expect from a Battlefield game. Tanks will always be tanks I guess. This is no bad thing, because vehicles are a great deal of fun in Battlefield, even more so with the destructible environments, which makes tanks quite effective. What’s cool though is that you’re able to swap the camera view, so you can drive around in third person view if you prefer it.

Graphically, I’ve already mentioned that Bad Company 2 is a monster of a PC game, and that’s with good reason. The game looks visually amazing and feels incredibly realistic, with a war atmosphere so good it’s mind blowing blasting. There’s a great deal of praise I can give to the game’s graphics, unquestionably, and it’s all made even better with the awesome quality of the sound, which really captures you in the game. Music doesn’t play while engaged in war, to keep the realism in full effect, but the sound track played during the loading times and menu is great.

Even though this is the beta, it sometimes feels like a full package. We’re really excited to see what the full game has to offer, because at this point in time we like what we see. This game really does look like it could be solid competition for Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare 2, but we’ll leave that up to the full game to decide. I hope the online lag issues (with the server browser and such) get fixed completely and we get the online experience, strictly referring to PC here, we never really got with Modern Warfare 2. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 has made an overall good first impression, so even though we have our issues with it and doubts, as expected, we can’t wait to see the final game.

Minimum Frostbite PC Specifications for BFBC2 & BF1943

• Processor: Core 2 Duo @ 2.0GHz
• Memory: 2GB
• Graphics Card: GeForce 7800 GT / ATI X1900
• Graphics Memory: 256MB
• Operating System: Windows XP
• Free HDD space: 15GB for Digital Version, 10GB for Disc Version (BFBC2) / 10GB for Digital Version, 4GB for Disc Version (BF1943)

Recommended Frostbite PC Specifications for BFBC2 & BF1943

• Processor: Quadcore
• Memory: 2GB
• Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 260
• Graphics Memory: 512MB
• Operating System: Windows Vista or Windows 7
• Free HDD space: 15GB for Digital Version, 10GB for Disc Version (BFBC2) / 10GB for Digital Version, 4GB for Disc Version (BF1943)