Military-based action games have become the first-person-shooter staple thanks to franchises like Call of Duty. We've seen attempts to capture the same experience before, but Battlefield: Bad Company seems to do the best job at tackling the genre with its own take on things.
We've been playing Bad Company 2 for a while now and enjoy some things, but dislike others. Does it have a leg to stand on, or does it rely on too many elements that Modern Warfare 2 has seemingly perfected?
Dan: As a potential rival to the juggernaut that is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the equally awkwardly named Battlefield: Bad Company 2 certainly looks the part. It has a collection of multiplayer games, a semi-throwaway single-player campaign, and the long-standing provenance that comes from being an offshoot of a well-liked classic game series.
And, in fact, this buzz-heavy shooter is very well-made and has much that catches our attention. It's main claim to fame is wildly destructible environments, which is a press-release-like way of saying many of the actual buildings and structures in the game can be brought down by rockets, bombs, and other high-powered attacks.
Certainly that destruction mechanic was engaging enough to keep us roped into a single-player campaign that started off strong with a gripping WWII raid, but soon fell into shopworn cliche (and unlike the similarly cliched Modern Warfare 2, it lacked the frenetic energy to keep us from asking too many questions)--at least for a few hours.
But the main attraction is the online multiplayer, and on this count, the game both hits and misses. The ability to bring a building tumbling down on someone's head makes for battles that feel different almost every time, and the mission types stay far away from the typical team death match shootouts, making this a a must-try for fans of military first-person shooters. … Read more
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