Wed 5 May 2010
In Battlefield: Bad Company 2, the B company fight their way through snowy mountaintops, dense jungles and dusty villages. With a heavy arsenal of deadly weapons and a slew of vehicles to aid them, the crew set off on their mission and they are ready to blow up, shoot down, blast through, wipe out and utterly destroy anything that gets in their way.
As with the original Bad Company, BC2 is a great looking game, and the latest version of DICE’s Frostbite game engine seems fill the screen with more action and to throw more particles around than any other at the moment. Combined with amazingly atmospheric battle sounds (the echoing cracks of gunshot, booming explosions, the yells of the enemy) this makes BC2 one of the most thrilling FPS experiences yet. But, if you played Bad Company 1, you’ll soon realize that the maps that were absolutely sprawling wide open sandboxes have been trimmed down to narrow corridors, and although there are a couple of wide open locations and vehicles feature a lot more than in say, Modern Warfare 2, the gameplay seems to have been modified to be much closer to Infinity Ward’s game. This means that even on some of the bigger maps if you stray off the beaten track by more than a few yards you’ll get an intensely annoying “Turn back! You are leaving the Combat Area!” and a 10-second countdown for you to return to the set path. It feels like you’re getting a slapped wrist for daring to explore and weakens the game’s appeal considerably, although there are still plenty of collectable weapons to hunt for as well as hidden M-Com stations. There are some vehicles to drive (most notably a mission in which you get to control an M1 Abrams main battle tank) but these are few and far between and the narrower maps mean there’s little need for the extensive exploration that the first game required. A couple of vehicle levels play more like races or Call of Duty-style ‘ride-along-and-shoot’ set pieces than actual combat arenas (there’s even a quad bike level that plays just like the skidoo level in MW2). You don’t even get to pilot a helicopter this time, just ride along in a Black Hawk gunship and use the side-mounted mini gun, a mission that could literally have been an add-on for EA’s Modern Warfare 2.
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This co-operative action horror FPS takes you and your friends through the cities, swamps and cemeteries of the Deep South, from Savannah to New Orleans across five expansive campaigns. You’ll play as one of four new survivors armed with a wide and devastating array of classic and upgraded weapons. In addition to firearms, you’ll also get a chance to take out some aggression on infected with a variety of carnage-creating melee weapons, from chainsaws to axes and even the deadly frying pan. You’ll be putting these weapons to the test against (or playing as in Versus) three horrific and formidable new Special Infected. You’ll also encounter five new “uncommon” common infected, including the terrifying Mudmen. Helping to take L4D’s frantic, action-packed gameplay to the next level is AI Director 2.0. This improved Director has the ability to procedurally change the weather you’ll fight through and the pathways you’ll take, in addition to tailoring the enemy population, effects, and sounds to match your performance. L4D2 promises a satisfying and uniquely challenging experience every time the game is played, custom-fitted to your style of play.