Pages

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Battlefield Bad Company 2

Battlefield Bad Company 2


List Price:$19.99
Price:$18.15 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hoursShips from and sold by Amazon.com
                        Average customer review:  

Product Description

Get ready for the most spectacular FPS multiplayer experience ever! Battlefield Bad Company 2™ brings the spectacular Battlefield gameplay to the forefront of next-gen consoles and PC - featuring best-in-class vehicular combat set across 8 huge sandbox maps each with a different tactical focus.


Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #724 in Video Games
  • Brand: Electronic Arts
  • Model: 19036
  • Released on: 2010-03-02
  • ESRB Rating: Mature
  • Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows XP
  • Format: DVD-ROM
  • Number of items: 1
  • Dimensions: .60" h x 5.30" w x 7.50" l, .19 pounds

Features

  • 8 Huge Multiplayer Maps. Each with a different tactical and gameplay focus and set across a variety of environments
  • Ultimate Online Vehicle Warfare! 15 land, sea and air vehicles, each with a tactical advantage during play. Race into action with the ATV or rain death from above in the UH-60 transport helicopter with its 2 side-mounted rail guns
  • All-new Squad Gameplay. Team up with 3 other players and fight together to unlock special awards and achievements in 2 squad-specific game modes
  • Destruction 2.0. Take down entire buildings, create firepoints in cover or blow it up entirely! In Battlefield Bad Company 2™ there will be no place to hide!
  • ‘Play It Your Way’ experiment and refine your ideal combat style with 4 character classes (medic, assault, recon and engineer), 15000+ kit variations, 46 weapons (200 different customization opportunities), 15 gadgets and 13 character specializations.


Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Product Description 
Battlefield Bad Company 2 is a first-person shooter, and sequel to Electronic Arts' 2008 release, Battlefield Bad Company. Following the continuing combat adventures of misfits of the US Army's Company "B," Bad Company 2 features the characteristic humor and grit of the Bad Company series, as well as a variety of gameplay improvements and additions, including 2-24 player online support; all-new four man squad gameplay; and more.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 game logo
Story and Gameplay
Like the original Battlefield: Bad Company game, Bad Company 2 is a first-person shooter following the exploits of Company "B" of the US Army's 222nd Battalion. In this new adventure, the more mature yet still infamous company of misfits are tasked with interceding in a series of conflicts that have the potential to ignite of a new World War. Game environments cover snowy mountains, all the way to jungles and deserts.

Cavalry / infantry combat in the snow in Battlefield Bad Company 2

Classic military combat gameplay.
View larger.
A vehicle blowing up after taking fire in Battlefield Bad Company 2

New destructive abilities.
View larger.
ATV and combat helicopter in action is Battlefield Bad Company 2

Ultimate online vehicle warfare.
View larger.
Firing on a approaching ATV with passenger in Battlefield Bad Company 2

New squad-based play options.
View larger.
Sniper taking aim from a distance in Battlefield Bad Company

Four available character classes.
View larger.
As the action begins players have their pick of four distinct character classes, and weapons, gadgets and specializations. Within these, players have over 15,000 kit variations to discover, and will be able to fine-tune their preferred fighting style to give them the edge in combat that they will need to survive and prevail. In addition, new vehicles like the all terrain vehicle (ATV) and the UH-60 transport helicopter allow for new tactics, which players are free to choose from. As players fight through mission play they will level up their playable character through the ranks as they accumulate experience points in combat for enemies eliminated and objectives completed. Excellence in the battlefield is rewarded with an extensive range of pins, insignias and stars to unlock along with 50 dedicated ranks to achieve. Battlefield 2 also features a major multiplayer component. Along with standard 24-player online multiplayer options across eight maps, players can also compete in 4-player teams in 2 exclusive squad-only game modes, fighting together to unlock exclusive team awards and achievements. During these online battles players can spawn on your squad to get straight into the action, and use gadgets such as the tracer dart in-conjunction with the RPG to devastating effect. Taken together these features make for one of the most realistic ground/vehicle combat experiences ever.
The New Frostbite Engine
Tactical destruction in Bad Company 2 is taken to new heights with the updated DICE 'Frostbite' engine. Unlike in the first game in the series, which featured considerable, but limited destructible game environments, in Battlefield Bad Company 2players can now take down entire buildings or create their own vantage points by blasting holes through cover, thereby delivering a unique dynamic experience in every match.
Key Features

System Requirements:

Minimum Specifications:Recommended Specifications:
OS:Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7.
Processor:Core 2 Duo @ 2.0GHzQuadcore
RAM:2GB2GB+
Disc Drive:8x DVD-ROM drive or better
Hard Drive:10GB or more
Video Card:256MB GeForce 7800 GT / ATI X1900512MB GeForce GTX 260
Input Device:Mouse and keyboard, gamepad


Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews
135 of 147 people found the following review helpful.
5Take that, Infinity Ward!
By Senor Zoidbergo
I bought BC2 off Steam after hearing all the hoopla about Modern Warfare 2, and after trying the BC2 Beta. I made the purchase for the multi-player only; I hear the single player campaign is pretty short. As a newcomer to the Battlefield series, I am quite impressed with Bad Company 2.

PROS:

- Fully destructible environments; it's amazing to stand inside a house while it's getting shelled by a tank, only to have the walls, roof, and windows get blown to bits around you. Nearly everything on the map can be destroyed (with the exception of some boulders). For instance, when shooting at an enemy who is hiding behind a concrete wall, the concrete first starts to get chipped, then gradually larger pock-marks form, then re-bar is exposed, then the concrete is reduced to dust. It's pretty incredible.

- Gravitational effects; yes, gravity plays a big part in this game. Shoot a tank shell half a mile, and the shell doesn't fly straight to the target. Rather, it assumes a parabolic arc. The same is true for sniper rifles, so one needs to make suitable adjustments.

- Achievements; I enjoy the multi-player method of unlocking weapons and gadgets. Many modern-day weapons are modeled, and various gadgets include new scopes, holographic sights, extended magazines, etc..

- Sound; fully immersive, adds to the authenticity.

- 32 Player multi-player servers; brilliant online madness.

- Huge maps; the urban combat maps are tricky, snipers hiding around every nook and cranny. The island warfare map is lush with waterfalls and plant life. Great map design.

- Weapons balancing; the vehicles/weapons feel more balanced in the full game, than they did in the beta. Helicopters no longer reign the skies with impunity, and can be taken down more easily. The same goes for vehicles.

- Graphics; weapons, vehicles, everything modeled with great detail. Love the Russian/American uniforms.

- Snipers not being allowed to go prone; there are already too many users who jump for the sniper class in every multi-player match, and allowing players to go prone would make them nigh impossible to spot. Being allowed to crouch is more than sufficient; the maps are huge, and there's enough rubble around to generate many good hiding spots that already make a ghillie suited sniper hard to see. If you play on a hardcore server with no killcam, you won't miss the lack of prone at all- snipers are all but invisible.

- Performance; the game runs pretty well despite my not having a top of the line gaming rig. With a Core i7 920, 4 GB RAM, and Nvidia GTX 260 with Core 216, I can run all settings at maximum and still get 70-90 fps.

- **UPDATE**; I did finally get around to trying the single player campaign, and like others have said, it is pretty weak. However, think of the SP as an extended tutorial for the multi-player, where you can try out different weapons and get used to the recoil and handling.

CONS:

- Server browser interface; it's slow and could be optimized better. Adding favorite servers takes a few seconds to do, when it ought to be near instantaneous. Also, I get kicked randomly from certain servers and EA Online occasionally disconnects for no apparent reason. **UPDATE** The connection issues were primarily in the first week of gameplay, when EA's servers were overwhelmed by players. Since then, connection has been rock-solid. Love the dedicated servers.

- Headwave; in an effort to implement more realistic effects, DICE went overboard on the headbobbing that the player experiences when walking around. It was initially rather extreme, causing motion sickness and nausea. Eventually, I acclimated to the bobbing, but it wouldn't hurt the realism if they turned it down a notch.

- Too many persons using sniper online; but you have that problem with any online FPS game.

In conclusion, I'd say the pros far outweigh the cons to make BFBC2 a great and enjoyable multiplayer first person shooter.

**Note: To unlock the M1 Garand, you need to be a Battlefield Veteran (e.g. own at least 2 games of the BF series, including BFBC2). If BFBC2 is your first purchase, you can still qualify by downloading and playing the FREE game, Battlefield Heroes. Then visit [...], to register and view your account (same login/pw as your EA Account).

59 of 66 people found the following review helpful.
3Fun game, but it can be so much more...
By Corpsie
I've always been a fan of the Battlefield series. Battlefield 1942 could do no wrong and I spent countless hours logged in fighting on epic WWII maps. Battlefield Vietnam was awesome. Battlefield 2 was/is pure win for a modern combat FPS game and I have duked it out with numerous online opponents.

Sparking my interest, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was one of three games I bought in a row on Steam. Since I have a relatively new computer and no games to push its graphics limit, I was excited to start playing this newest member of the Battlefield series. I'd like to qualify this review. I have not played Battlefield: Bad Company (the first one). The only experience I have with this series is as stated above so all of my comparisons will be in direct correlation with those older games.

Let's start with single-player mode. Single-player is a joke and leads you on a linear storyline. Probably a third of it is spent watching cut scenes and whatnot with you jumping into the action for about a minute before leaping back into another cut scene. It's not too fun to be honest and seems like it's trying to emulate Call of Duty too much. I prefer the older single-player modes in the Battlefield series where you can practice your skills on various maps you would find in multiplayer. The graphics of course are outstanding and the voice actors are excellent (anyone who has played Arma knows how horrible voice actors can ruin a gaming experience).

Multiplayer is what I wanted though. So after familiarizing myself with the controls in single-player, I decided to leap into some online battles. Okay, "leap" maybe too strong of a word. How about "inch"? Yes, INCH my way into some online battles sounds better. As others have stated in reviews and comments, it takes forever for a server refresh. And by "forever" I mean about a minute. But that's forever in gamer time. So once the server list comes up, I'd like to apply certain filters to find the specific games I'd like to play. I click some check boxes and hit server refresh and BAM...wait...another minute goes by then...BAM! There's my updated server list. The load times into multiplayer games themselves seems to be on par with the load times with Battlefield 2. Maybe a tad bit longer. One of the rumors I have read in regards to the unholy server load times was that EA wasn't expecting this game to be a "success" or to be as popular as it has become. What? Really? You mean to tell me the success of the other Battlefield games wouldn't have given EA a clue as to server loads? Thought they were smarter than that.

Anyway...

The online action is intense and joining a squad is the smartest thing you can do. Being able to spawn on any squad member is cool in my opinion though several people have scoffed at the idea. Also take note of which servers are "hardcore" as opposed to "normal". In hardcore servers, you have no mini-map available, no crosshairs, no ammunition counter, and no heads up display on screen should enemies be spotted. I didn't know this was even an option so I would join some regular servers that provided this info then I'd join another server that was hardcore. I kept thinking I had hit a series of buttons that had removed this information from my screen.

It took me a couple of rounds to figure out some controls but overall, the controls are the same as most FPS' you have played. One thing that is rather annoying is the lack of the ability to go prone. I'm not sure why this wasn't included as it seems like a vital and rather common control that would aid in your survivability online. I've had my clock cleaned with a couple of well placed headshots because I couldn't go prone behind a large rock, woodpile, etc...

I dig the unlocks and achievements for Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Battlefield 2 had unlocks so it seems this game is improving on that, as well as latching on to the popularity of "achievements". Who doesn't like looking at their stats and seeing all those cool medals and badges?? I do. I'll sit for hours staring at them, plotting my next achievement, and calculating time ratios and differentials in my head while drinking copious amounts of Mountain Dew and not sleeping for days.

So, as I wind down this review, I will say that Battlefield: Bad Company 2 can be addicting but it can also be a lot better. A few things that I'd like to see are to bring back the big maps and more vehicle warfare. I know this is primarily an infantry slugfest at the moment, but the appeal of the Battlefield series was that you had the option to use any kind of vehicle throughout the game; from tanks to APCs, jets to helicopters, and anti-air to hummers. It was epic! Bad Company isn't epic. It's small scale and that's what is most disappointing to me. Sure, you can use a few vehicles now, but they are limited. I have fun, but the maps are few and horribly small and the battles are too quick. I can already feel the excitement draining from playing this game. Let Call of Duty do their thing. Why try to emulate CoD when you already have a successful franchise built on solid online gameplay? Let's get these patches going and see what Battlefield: Bad Company 2 can really do. This could easily be one of the best online games if EA would have just stuck with the previous formula used in the series.

EDIT 03/15/10: Soon after I posted this review, maybe a few days later, the server refreshes have considerably improved. I'm assuming EA has done a little maintenance on their end. There is still a bug that persists when you click on a server to join. Sometimes your log-in name in the top right corner of the screen will disappear and you will be unable to join a game. I have to click on the "Favourites" server tab, then back, my name will come back on screen and I can join a game. It happened to me a lot this weekend which was annoying. I was using the search feature to find a specific server and it happened more when I used that.

EDIT 04/06/10: Okay, so the little bug where your log-in name would disappear and you were unable to get into a server has gone the way of the Dodo! The interface is much smoother and a few new maps have been added to the Conquest and Rush server rotations which is cool. For a week or so I was playing this everyday just to get all the unlocks for each class (Assault, Engineer, Medic, Recon and Vehicles) and I'm about 80% of the way through all of the achievements. I enjoy the game to a certain extent, but still yearn for something more...

48 of 58 people found the following review helpful.
5Great PC game... DICE picked up what MW2 left on the table.
By J. Powlus
Let me start by saying:
I had fun playing Modern Warfare 2, and I'll probably still play it occasionally, but it will be an exercise in frustration when compared to this game. It has already been well documented that IW made the PC version of MW2 with as little effort as possible. It is, quite simply, the XB360 version ported over to the PC with no effort to make use of the greatly expanded capabilities of the PC as a gaming platform. We know you sell fewer units to the PC gaming market than you do to XB360/PS3, but we prefer to not be treated like outcasts. MW2 would NOT be the game it is today on ANY platform without the PC gaming platform on previous versions, especially because of the modding community. Since IW/Activision has effectively squashed them, I believe that innovation on future versions of the game will stagnate drastically.
Enter DICE.
Previous games in the Battlefield series have been quite good, but it is a different world in 2010. More people are buying games than ever before and MW2 sold 4.7 million copies in the first 24 hours of release (largely by catering to consoles). BFBC2 will sell well on the consoles, too, I believe, but MW2 left a big, wide door open with the PC community. DICE made a very distinct effort to step through that door and to bring some deserved features to the PC version of the game.
For instance:
A server browser...because we can use dedicated servers. Whew. MW2's matchmaking system is awful.
A UI that is built for mouse input, not adapted from console input.
Adjustable FOV (AWESOME).
32-players can play in a single game. Fantastic.
...and many more features, including improved graphics performance. The PC version played on a 1920x1200 screen (or higher) on a DX11 card is FAR superior to video output from a console on the greatest of TVs.

As for game play, it is a real hoot. The vehicles and destruction of buildings really brings a bit of realism and fun that MW2 is sorely lacking. After bringing down a building to kill all the enemies inside (in BFBC2), it is really frustrating to play MW2 and have a javelin missile not hurt your enemies because they are taking cover in a 3-wall wooden shed. Every time you play BFBC2, even on the same maps, the game will be different. That building you took cover in last time to snipe at the enemies? Turns out a tank flattened it already. Better find a different spot. I haven't had time to play too much multiplayer yet (although I played the beta quite a bit), but I'm enjoying the single player much more than I enjoyed the MW2 single player game.

UPDATE: I've been playing multiplayer BFBC2 like some kind of addict. Jumping into a game alone is fun, but when you have at least 3 friends on your team (and you have communications, such as teamspeak), the teamwork aspect of the game really shines. Well done, DICE.

UPDATE (2010-11-10): If you haven't purchased this game yet, now is the time. $16? Bargain. The online multiplayer community is still very very strong. A few completely new maps (well, they are new to BC2) are going to be released soon which will add even more fun to the game. I still play the game almost every day, even though I purchased and enjoy Medal of Honor and Call of Duty: Black Ops...I still like BC2 more.

No comments:

Post a Comment