Features// Battlefield Bad Company 2

The Battlefield series has always been a staple in most PC FPS-gamers' diet, from the original – Battlefield: 1942, to the more recent incarnations – Battlefield 2, Battlefield 2142 and the constant stream of updates that appeared for each. It's a massive franchise that demands respect, despite it's abandoning of the PC world with the release of Bad Company in 2008.


A sigh of relief could be heard by the PC community when EA/DICE announced that Bad Company 2 will be released for PC as well as the usual consoles, but does it stand up to their elitist views of the genre? Well, kind of.

Bad Company 2 uses DICE's Frostbite engine, which elaborates on Bad Company's destructible environments with the ability to level entire buildings. This is the first time PC gamers will be able to destroy the environment in the Battlefield series (unless Battlefield: 1943 comes out soon), and it's a welcome addition to the franchise. The feeling of being able to level a building is nothing short of fantastic, knowing that you can simply destroy the building to get at the enemy is by far a more appealing option than hopping out of your tank to run in and shoot them - a safer one too!

In practice, the destruction of buildings isn't quite as effective as you'd like. While you can destroy buildings, it leaves no rubble. This was a concious choice by EA/DICE, intended to keep the game free-flowing and fun. This does mean that you can't tumble a building onto a tank, or crush the inhabitants, but it does mean that if a target is within a building, it can't be buried, so in the long run, it's for the best. DICE have worked hard on making the game more enjoyable to play, creating a more playable experience overall, however it seems to have backfired a little. The hardcore PC crowd currently playing hands-on are bewildered by some of the ideas implemented in this latest incarnation, which appear to result in a strange, new direction for the tactical shooter.

As with all Battlefield games, the key to success is that of good teamwork and clever use of your available arsenal. To promote the use of squads, DICE have implemented the squad points system from previous Battlefield instalments; stay close to your squad and every kill and action will result in a squad bonus. This can be a little difficult when you have a four man squad and a 2-man helicopter, but someone has to fly those damned things!

You can spawn on any member of your squad, which is a total bitch when it comes to defending. Leave one member of a squad alive and all of a sudden you could be screwed seven ways from Sunday when the rest of the squad spawn in. The old method of having a squad leader seemed a much more elegant solution than the resulting 'frag-fest' from spawning in on squad members.

DICE's decisions all require a change of tactics from the older incarnations, though the gameplay remains very similar. The combination of the new squad features, and the inability to go prone (yes, you read that right), result in an overall faster pace of game... Which, as you may recall, is exactly what battles are all about; sod who wins and loses, as long as it's over quickly so you can break for tea and biscuits. It's hard not to be sceptical about the gameplay choices, as it's such a step in a different direction for Battlefield. The focus seems to be on battle intensity now, as opposed to clever gameplay.

Timing a set piece with your squad used to be something memorable, whereas now it feels as though fire-power reigns over tactics. Snipers can't go prone, you can't seek cover behind low walls and every element to the game appears to be just the wrong height to protect your head, so there's little cover in the heat of battle. Combined with the destructible environments, it genuinely feels like there's nowhere to hide.

At the moment, Bad Company 2 feels slightly influenced by the Call of Duty series, focusing more on intense battles rather than the overall war, which is unlike the BF series and feels like a step in the wrong direction. Furthermore to the "slight" influence of CoD, the health-bar has been replaced with on-screen blood splatter. However this does fade leaving you to ponder about your current health status, for all you know you could be an anthropomorphic colander.

At the end of the day this is a Battlefield game, so expect the usual quirks. Hit detection feels the same way it always did - you can empty a clip into a moving enemy and you may or may not kill them, depending on the relative humidity and member of staff in the server room, and the number of rounds needed to kill an enemy feels a little ridiculous. This can be solved by aiming for the head, but then you're at the mercy of the hit detection once again. We can't be too judgemental of a problem that has always plagued the series, but it would be nice to see an extra dollop of polish before final release.

Presuming the success of the game, which is no doubt in the console market, the character progression is massive. Like previous titles, there is scope for racking up hundreds of hours of gameplay to unlock everything. This will anger girlfriends/wives and parents across the world as their blokes/children waste countless hours trying to get the next gun, the next rank or the next award.

Strangely, DICE have changed the points system, where 500 points would be a good score in most BF games, you rapidly gain points in BC2, often racking up well over 1,000 points. To counteract this they've moved the goalposts, meaning that ranks require more points. It feels like a completely pointless move, but could be a testament to pointless marketing psychology... after all, 1,000 is bigger than 500, so it must be better, right?!

The weapons balance and kits do feel heavily unbalanced, which again is no change to the series, but this is a sequel and by now you'd think they'd get the kits right! Beginner weapons are poor, there's no two ways about that. Higher rank players will often spank you with their updated weapons. While this does encourage you to play more it is frustrating for newcomers, and although skill will overcome most showdowns, the better weapons do make a big difference when facing someone of similar skill-level.

Kits have been over-simplified to offer four basic kits, Assault, Engineer, Medic and Recon. Assaults now offer ammo, and medics have an LMG. It's a ridiculous notion that the light-footed medic be weighed down with a massive gun. But then there appears to be no reduction in movement and no difference in armour amongst the classes. BC2 perpetuates the over-simplification of the series in the name of making the game accessible; a growing trend of console gaming.

Graphically the game looks fantastic, thanks to the decision of vanishing rubble/debris, it runs fairly smoothly when you consider that every tree, every building...well, everything, can be blown up in one way or another!

Textures are beautifully rendered and don't look too bad even at the lowest setting. Crank it up high and the scenery is breathtaking - you can see clearly for a massive distance too; a welcome improvement to the series. Sadly, thanks to a phrase which is becoming scarily common, "in the interest of fairness", there's a big issue with the visuals. Something which console gamers don't seem to grasp is the field of view.

When playing on a console you're far enough away that peripheral vision doesn't affect gameplay all that much. But with the advent of widescreen displays for PC, you're sat much closer and have a much wider view. DICE haven't catered for this at all, leaving a claustrophobic feeling of sticking a paper bag on your head with eye holes.

Sounds are up to the usual Battlefield quality, offering realistic gunshots and cries for help from your team. Gunshots echo out around the map, generally followed by the call "sniper!", which leaves you with around five seconds to find cover before you're futt-bucked from every angle by the grass-skirt wearing Recon brigade.

All in all, BFBC2 is on the right tracks to being an awesome multi-player game to rival it's predecessors in the PC market. It's enjoyable, it's dramatic and you can drive/fly more vehicles than the Stig. It's also got some massive shoes to fill; how well it's received is going to be tricky to anticipate, the field of view is going to annoy widescreen gamers, and the lack of prone changes the way you play the game entirely. There is mention of a hardcore mode, but if this just increases damage it's going to piss off more people than it pleases.

It feels more like a magic act than a game, you're engrossed in it so much that you miss the flaws in design created to appeal to the console market. Despite the assurances that the PC version has been developed separately for the PC market, it's hard to believe that's the case as it feels much like a... well, I can't say it, but it rhymes with "ponsole cort".

A solid console shooter, but may fall a little short of the expectations of PC elitists.

See more of gritty in-depth PC coverage at our good friends over at Thirteen1.