Embarrassing.

Way back about a decade and a half ago, in the salad days of the seventh-generation of console shooters, debates raged in high schools all across the West. The teenaged gaming masses congregated around their lunch tables and pounded back Monster energy drinks, each one more certain in their position than the last. ”Halo or Call of Duty?”, they would ask. It was a challenge more than it was an actual question; are you with us, or are you against us? Call of Duty was a bit faster, and Halo was a bit more rewarding for tactical play, but the games were so fundamentally different that there wasn’t much real point to the arguments. Nobody was about to have their mind changed. Black Ops and Halo: Reach dropped around the same time and subsequently marked the conflict’s denouement; everyone had chosen and then dug into their respective sides. Lines had been drawn, and that was that. There was nobody left who could still be converted to the other side. With that, games discussion eventually moved on to other and more intellectually-stimulating topics, such as which Mass Effect girl was the most fuckable, or who had the coolest fatality in Mortal Kombat 9.

You know what nobody ever fucking talked about? Battlefield.

Honestly, given the glut of shooters and the intensity of the arguments surrounding them, you’d think there would have been at least one guy at one lunch table somewhere who interrupted the Call of Duty vs. Halo talk to mention that he preferred Battlefield 2142. But no, there wasn’t. Not really. Not until Battlefield 3, at least, but that was long after the debates had started fading into background noise. Battlefield was just kind of hanging out in its own weird lane, a little bit too arcade-y for the simulator fans, and a little bit too fucking annoying with the bullet drop for the twitchy, greasy teenagers. As someone who grew up in that period and went to war with my friends over how Halo was gay and how Call of Duty was badass (it had Ghost), Battlefield had the vibe of something my dad would have enjoyed, and not in a cool way. It was the Kid Rock American Badass of shooters.

Anyway, much like my dad, Bad Company 2 has a bit of a complex about looking old and lame next to contemporary early-10s shooter slop. One sequence where you’re lost in the snow has a character say that they can’t turn back because they’ll be replaced by guys with pussy-ass heartbeat monitors on their guns, like in Modern Warfare 2. Another set piece where you race quad bikes with your squad has a guy complain that he would be winning if you were on snowmobiles, to which another character quips that snowmobiles are for pussies. You know, like in Modern Warfare 2. There’s a sequence where an EMP goes off, fries all of the surrounding technology, makes helicopters fall out of the sky, and has your squad leader mention that all of the electronics are broken, like in Modern Warfare 2. Unlike in Modern Warfare 2, however, your holographic sights still work just fine, making the whole sequence feel both like a complete ripoff and lazy to boot.

There’s nothing wrong with stealing ideas. Really, I don’t think it’s as much of a crime to be unoriginal as a lot of people make it out to be. What I do have a problem with, however, is when you intentionally keep drawing comparisons to other media, brag about how much better or cooler you are, and then wind up being unquestionably the worse of the two. Don’t be a poser. It’s embarrassing. Bad Company 2 has what I’d like to call ”Duke Nukem Forever syndrome”. Yeah, I sure do hate Valve puzzles. Power armor really is for pussies. Hey, Duke, while you’ve got a minute, your game fucking sucks. Can you try and make it better before you start taking shots at things that are infinitely more exciting, enjoyable, and sincere than you are? The same applies here. Please, shut the fuck up about how much better you are than Modern Warfare 2. You aren't, and if you stopped talking about Modern Warfare 2, I wouldn't be sitting here wishing I was playing that instead. You don't get points for preempting criticisms people are going to make of your game and then leaving them in there anyway. If you're aware enough to point out that what you're doing isn't distinct enough to distance yourself from your competition on its own, then why aren't you changing anything?

The answer, really, is that this was a strange time in which everything that was releasing had some publisher-ordered mode hanging off of it like a vestigial bone. It was the era of the tack-on. Games couldn’t just be single-player. They needed to have a shitty afterthought multiplayer mode that shipped with it. They couldn’t just be multiplayer, either, so you needed to hook a shitty afterthought single-player mode onto it, too. I don’t get the feeling that DICE wanted to make a campaign. Hell, I don’t think anyone really cared about it. I’ve got some buddies who owe their friendship to Bad Company 2 purely because it was where they all met, and every single one of them I talked to about this game expressed surprise that it even had a single-player mode. I suppose that’s the greatest indictment anyone could give; for anything to be so forgettable that the people it's most important to can’t even remember it existing.

On that note, one of those same friends said he was going to kill me if I gave this a bad score, because the multiplayer was "just that good". Regrettably, then, the multiplayer for this game is completely in the grave due to EA taking it off of their digital storefronts months ago and announcing that the servers will be gone by this time next month. By 2024, the only part of this game you’ll actually be able to play is the campaign, and it’s definitely not the mode that I would have wanted to preserve if I was the EA executive who had to make that call. What a shame. Oh, well.

This is written like someone told an eighth grader to make a story about the military.

I genuinely don't get the point of making a single-player Battlefield game and stripping it of everything Battlefield is known for.

This game is so frustrating. It repeatedly throws you into seemingly big open maps that in actuality are filled with invisible walls. On rare occasions the game lets you find a way to flank or circumvent the enemies, but it almost feels like you're not meant to do it. The level design here is actually more linear than in Call of Duty 4 or Medal of Honor 2010. In addition, it's full of extremely scripted missions where you're not allowed any freedom of choice, just like in Modern Warfare 2. Except it also doesn't have the nice visuals, weapon variety or spectacle of the latter.

The only thing that kinda makes it stand out is the physics. It's fun to tear buildings apart with explosives. Other than that, it's a generic military shooter that, btw, doesn't even have a prone function. How do you not have proning in a military shooter in 2010? Delta Force had it in 1998! AND actual big open maps with total freedom of movement. This is just embarrassing.

Also, consider me a killjoy, but I don't think a humorous story is appropriate for a military shooter. Are we supposed to be having fun with these dudebros while they're fulfilling America's imperialist ambitions? I didn't really pay much attention to the actual story (not that it was well-presented), but I had no idea who we were fighting. But I assume it's probably some evil Russians or evil South Americans or evil Middle-Easterners or some shit. Don't get me wrong, I don't expect much more from American military shooters, but at least treat the subject matter with seriousness. This is just plain disrespectful.

Really think the mobile version should be listed separately, as it's an entirety different game, but I don't make the rules.

It has good graphics and is competently put together. But compared to even handheld first-person shooters it just sucks. Levels are linear, AI is dumb, guns have little to no feedback, physics are non-existent. This is like the bare-minimum of what a shooter can be. The second mission is a tank-driving mission (technically it's a btr, but whatever), and I hate those. But it also has escort missions within it, which makes it even worse.

Honestly, the general impression I got from it was that it's not really a game, but more like an application to kill time. I doubt even the developers had any interest in creating it.

I belong inside a foXhole, Im a jarhead at heart and just looove to keep bayud company (THIS IS ALPHA FOXTROT 6, Locked&Loaded and bearing em Magnums, got mah target in mah SightS, Im comming in straight thru thewall boyS!!!). and I admit it...I was behind that defibrillator massacre that hit the headlines back then. All em victims were recons so technically speaking twasnt a warcrime if you ask me!

PS: when I enabled War Tapes audio it felt like I was rly there at the frontlines, airsofting with theboys...
PPS: sry for using OldMaterial not coming up with something more original, i promise to do better ! will get my act together, my therapist told me to play RainbowSix Vegas2

Not long after a brief but fairly fun stint with Battlefield 4, I decided to try out the last Battlefield game that I hadn't tried, Battlefield 2 Bad Company. As with all the battlefield series and a lot of FPS games in general, it's obvious the focus of the game is the multiplayer aspect, which with the servers closing this month, is a bit of a detractor. Luckily, BFBC2 has a really nice single player campaign that builds on what made the BFBC campaign good! You play as the slightly boring main dude (can't even remember his name), one of the 4 members of Bad Company, a rag tag group of soldiers including Sweetwater, Haggarty and Sarge. BC1 was a great game because of the fun and witty banter between the characters and the fact that pretty much everything can be blown up. These are both still present, even if maybe to a slightly lesser extentent. The dialouge makes your teammates seem so realistic and its such a refreshing change from a lot of games that put little effort into their voice overs. One particular highlight for me was listening to Sarge comment that he "should have taken that adult education course" when trying to use a computer, and I also really enjoyed the addition of the new pacifist pilot. These moments are littered throughout the campaign and really build on what is a fairly solid story. The levels themselves are a bit shorter than BC1, with most taking around 20 minutes to complete. They have also updated the slightly awkward checkpoint structure from the pervious game, which means you will spend less time repeating sections when you die. I think what really makes BC2 a better game than most shooters on the console is how the game feels. Even though some of the button choices are strange, the controls are responsive and you can take down a group of enemies quickly and accurately. The difficulty level is great, and most enemies will prove a decent challenge, especially with the excellent AI. The levels are varied and offer different challenges and the vehicle sections work well as a nice respite from the shooting. Overall it's just a really solid and fun campaign which I would argue is up there with CODMW1. Don't think of it as just a multiplayer game, it's a great singleplayer addition to any collection.

It's really neat to play what's p much a simulacrum of the military shooter bonanza 10 years later. It also being the poster child for Battlefield "when it was good" also makes it cool to see where people were coming from back then, not that I'd say I agree fully.

It definitely has the sound and visual design of Dice's crazy engine with the smoke and building destruction that people and honestly including me soy out for. The banter between the main cast is pretty charming too, which considering the hoorah paint-by-numbers aesthetic this shit usually goes for (and my experience with Battlefield 3 is any truth of) is real refreshing. While the environments are kind of so-so now, there's spots of genuine awe with where the lighting hits.

It's just too bad and unsurprising that it's not any fun to play. Gunplay meets the job required of it but it's not real fun to shoot, and the mission design is really scattershot leaning p awful. There's a lot of moments where you'll have to walk forward without your squad and then get forced into an enemy ambush that can down you quickly if you're unlucky. Game's quite buggy too even with all the patches, and hit detection is very weird and inconsistent for whatever reason. That part might just be a PC-only thing cuz I couldn't find anything for the console versions about that. The level and enemy design is of course, nothing remotely to write home about, because there isn't much to talk about. It's a military shooter you have to be prepared to fight the same slice of enemies for 4+ hours that's kind of what you sign up for.

I can't speak for the multiplayer at all, one because it's kind of dead, and secondly because the online pass thing is so finicky now. Really dated itself fast with that huh?

Don't feel like I wasted my time, but I don't recommend coming back to it.

I got into a fistfight with a friend over a pirated dvd of this game back when it came out (didn't have it legit because I didn't really understand the diference between buying it in the local video store and a legit store) and we beat the absolute shit out of each other at 14 years. I would give it a higher score but fucking Federico chipped me a tooth and had this fucked up fang for like 10 years until I removed it last year, which in turn cured my sinusitis that I didn't even know I had because the teeth had actually been punched inside by some milimiters and blocked a portion of my nose cavity. The fucker ended up being like 3-4 cms long and had to get local anesthesia to remove it and still have a scar inside my mouth for it. At least I got him in the face and he ended up needing stitches which later in his life made him get addicted to drugs because he had a terrible coping mechanism. I still see him from time to time in the local plaza trying to sell weed.

Anyways it's good I guess got it two years ago officially in steam and played it for a bit

"This shit was cray. Extremely cray."

Unlike that reference, which I had made when I first reviewed this game in 2012, this game has aged relatively well. A no nonsense pre-Origin Battlefield game with a decent campaign and a memorable, albeit fleeting, multiplayer. Sure, there's no prone position, but who needs that, Mr. Call o' Shooty?

Make sure to play with a friend for the ultimate Battlebros experience.

This review is only based upon my experience in Singleplayer Mode.

A story of four professional soldiers who are trying to save USA from a Russian invasion, who form the Bad Company. At first you don't even know why you are even doing those tasks in the game, but with the story going on, you start to sort things out and becoming to be more familiar with you fellow soldiers, Sarge, Haggard and Sweets I have to admit that I was annoyed by how much maps I've change throughout the game ( from snow, to jungle, to desert, and again snow, jungle,....), also it is a little bit annoying how much grenades your enemies have, almost every single time I was left without cover because of their grenade launchers which they have all the time on those Russians assault rifles. Great amount of weapons, but with one big problem, no modifications at all, or better said, they have two or three same weapons but the only thing which changes are the weapon sights ( Iron sight, Red-dot or ACOG sight and that's all). The idea of the story is great, but there are things which needs to be changed.