Battlefield 2 Bad Company Review.

**k9Pup** · Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 7:51 am Post subject: Battlefield 2 Bad Company Review.

This game will definitely appeal to the dedicated following of BF2 and COD4 Modern Warfare players.

Personally, I found it closer to a COD4 look and feel with the benefit of the Crysis type physics game engine.
Excellent graphics combine with a well balanced arsenal of weapons to ensure there could be hours of fun spent playing this game.

However, like so many of these games, it does not take long to find the game reminiscent of most first person shooters in this genre.
Lots of little men running around, dying, accusations of cheating and the obligatory shouting of 'Noob/Nube/Newbie' dampen the games appeal to new players unless your playing on a server with other players who still value having a good time and understand it is only a game.

Unfortunately, most games of this nature are geared towards 'Leveling up' where-in you obtain better weapons, perks and other niceties with which to ravage your opponent. This means you can be very skilled but be at the mercy of some pimply faced psychotic maniac who by playing non-stop for the past 4 weeks has nearly every wonder toy perk available (Think water pistol Vs AK47).

If you’re quick to temper, don’t have a good bunch of friends and or gaming clan to play with you will quickly become frustrated at being killed incessantly. And with BF2BC, there are innumerable ways to have this happen. This is one of the games strengths. From remote aerial vehicles able to remotely target their victims, to a cloud of mortars raining down, you will not be disappointed in the tools available (provided you have the patience to 'Level-up').

And for the ultimate thrill, there is nothing quite as satisfying as levelling a three story building from top to bottom. And I do mean level! The new physics engine allows virtually every item in game to be destroyed. The satisfaction of driving a T34 through a forest of snow covered trees and carving a path for your fellow team members to follow is most gratifying to say the least.

Good teamwork on a server with fun players will quickly see the benefits of honing your team skills. Running behind a T34 as a engineer equipped with a trusty repair tool can help sustain the tank crew very nicely indeed. Add a medic and an assault person and they combine to make a formidable force against most foes. I say most, because an opposing team with an Apache Gunship or targeted mortar rounds can just as quickly decimate all that great teamwork in the blink of an eye.

The current version of the PC beta does have a few glitches and bugs, but then that is the point of being a beta.

Bugs.
1. On a busy Server, your parachute into the 1st spawn point can fail. Big Fall! Big Splat!
2. Some random suiciding occurs.
3. There is no easy identifyable health meter for players. (Hope that a medic is watching your health)
4. The Game Server Sort functions dont work when trying to locate a server. (Really Big Frustration if you want to play with friends)
5. Invite Friends and Add favorit server at time of writing were non-functional

Game Stability.
During a total playing time of 18 hours, the game caused a Blue Screen of Death once on my machine. It also dumped completely out of game four times for no reason and crashed twice back to the login screen. You may also need to play with your gamma settings to tweak the visual side of the game especially in the beta map. 5.5/10

Game Popularity.
With the number of Game servers already available being 90% in use, the game is proving to be popular and there should be no shortage of players to compete against. 8/10

Game Graphics.
If you love eye candy, this game will not disappoint. 8/10

Game Playability.
The game ran smoothly on my review PC without glitching or jerkiness. Most surprising was the apparent lack of lag more commonly found with older games like BF2 or COD4 when a server is full with players from geographically different time zones (Think Australia/ England/USA). I found little if not no discernable difference between playing on a server in Australia (My home Country) to a Server hosted in the USA. Whatever the developers have done to minimise apparent lag is an absolute bonus! Die hard gamers might disagree with this view and no doubt there may be some benefits with playing on a local server, but for the most part, the average gamer will unlikely be able to tell the difference. 8/10

Game Tactics.
Whatever you decide, try to get yourself into a Team of like minded good players. You can use the inbuilt voice comms or 3rd party voice comms like Teamspeak, Ventrillo or Shockvoice. Take the time to quickly help each other level up to enable stronger hit damage, better health, stronger armour and faster reaction times. When using armoured vehicles, try to ensure you have a full compliment in the vehicle and at least one engineer behind you. Anti-tank mines are available as players level up, so the roads may not always be the safest option. This though will provided you ample opportunity to decimate trees (sorry tree-huggers).

The remote Arial Reconnaissance Vehicle can be a excellent tool not only to attack the opposing team forces, but also to communicate enemy troop movements and positions to your fellow team mates. A Team of four comprised of a engineer with rpg's, medic, sniper and assault (for ammo resupply) can be a formidable roadblock to advancing armour. All vehicles (regardless of type) should have a full compliment to ensure maximum effectiveness. Try to resist Rambo’ing off in a T34 without a machine gunner and a team of players supporting you.

Finally, be aware of your surroundings and fellow players. Watch for snipers on mountain tops, Arial Reconnaissance Vehicles in the distance, Apache Gunships and Blackhawks with Mini-guns. During the heat of battle it is easy with so much activity to loose focus and you may not see the enemy sneak into your own defences and weapons. 9/10

Game Review Machine Specs.
OS - Windows Vista Ultimate 64
Intel Quad Core Xeon 2.4 Ghz
8 Gig Ram DDR2
nVidia GTX285 1GB Mem Graphics Card
Graphics set at 1900 x 1200 with ALL effects maxed gave a frame rate of around 35fps.
Cable Modem Broadband Connection

On a scale of 1 to 10 I would give the game a 7.7/10 at this point whilst still in the PC beta.
Nothing ground breaking or really new, but good value eye candy and fun.
For those that may want to host their own dedicated server, be warned. The PC beta at this stage does not have the ability to play single player or host a dedicated server on your own PC.

Sample Videos:

Using a Rocket
BFBC2Game 2010-02-08 12-52-33-57_NEW.avi (5.09 MB)
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JE53VCS6

Using a Rocket Long Distance
BFBC2Game 2010-02-08 12-53-12-62_NEW.avi (8.99 MB)
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=M2PGIX90

Using a rocket against Tank & building Destruction
BFBC2Game 2010-02-08 14-48-38-71_NEW.avi (38.4 MB)
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BQ01U04M

Using Bradly Tank & Destroying Trees
BFBC2Game 2010-02-08 14-51-04-10_NEW.avi (27.9 MB)
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=4B25MCCD

Game Entry – Using Aerial Reconnaissance Vehicle & four wheel motor bike.
BFBC2Game 2010-02-08 18-23-27-81_NEW.avi (43.72 MB)
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=2XGV8O20

Using all T34 Tank Armaments, destroying trees and repairing vehicle.
BFBC2Game 2010-02-08 18-25-53-89_NEW.avi (41.4 MB)
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=B3V1VXD9

Using Tank to Destroy a Building and Knife to cut wire fencing
BFBC2Game 2010-02-08 18-27-50-41_NEW.avi (35.47 MB)
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VWP87WCJ

Using grenade launching tank and mowing down trees
BFBC2Game 2010-02-08 18-29-56-52_NEW.avi (41.92 MB)
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NPL2OCM1

Hope this review gives you a feel for the game.

Cheers,
k9Pup

Smile

ShazMX6 · Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 2:14 pm Post subject:

Nice Review, been waiting to hear from others who have actually played the Beta, and see what they say, rather than read some quote someone posted from some Developer Update Thread...

K9, does BC2 use Nvidia PhysX, just wondering, since I have my 9800GTX paired with my GTX 285, not just for an added GPU for Folding@Home, but for PhysX enabled Games as well.

I'm still pissed that they keep pushing BF1943 for PC back, since console systems have had it since last summer, now its pushed back for possible release after BC2 comes out (granted with in less than a months time, but still no reason to push it back so much, considering how long they've been working on it, and in an attempt to rush BC2 out).

But been waiting on a new BF game, something different, but newer with destructible environments, etc...

Haven't seen a game with that destructible of Environments (excluding Crysis) since the Original Red Faction for PC.

Should Definitely be a cool game when it comes out, assuming it doesn't have Boat loads of Bugs and issues.

any comments on the file size the current Beta weighs in at?

gives an idea of the amount Drive space that may be needed for basic game install, not including map packs and mods, etc.

whats the word on Support for the Modding community with BC2, I know that with CODMW2 their developers put out that they would not be supporting the modding community at all, wondering if EA/DICE will back up their comments against MW2's developers comments, and be as supportive as they have been in past with BF1942 and BF2.

Right now myself, I'm checking in with another game, along the lines of Armed Assault (ArmA) and Operation Flashpoint 2,

it apparently was put out by the British Military as their "America's Army" like recruiting tool, called JCOVE lite, its a lite british Military only version of Bohemia Interactives (original Developers for ArmA and Original Op:Flashpoint), VBS2 simulator, the Combat Reality Simulator software that is currently used by many Military's world wide for training. VBS2 is successor to VBS1 which was used for ArmA 1 and Xbox version of Operation Flashpoint (VBS2 used for them, not VBS1 which was used for original PC Flashpoint), ArmA 2 used the 3rd Gen version of the Game engine. So this JCOVE lite is not optimized for Dual core or greater CPU's and still rely's on Single Core CPU's (albeit, recommended to have a fairly high speed or powerful single CPU). and there is only limited Nvidia PhysX support with it.

though more serious and real than even JO, it might be worth looking into for some that want a more tactical and serious game to play once in a while.

biggest thing, is its free.

But back on BC2, so far sounds like it will be pretty cool to play once its out.

only thing I hate is since BF2 the whole unlocking of Weapons and perks for players, I really hate "military" shooters that do this, you should have access to all weapons based on classes from the get go. if they want to limit things, at least have some sort of training/qualifications setup like America's Army had for its different classes, to be able to unlock bigger and better weapons and abilities. Not just simply rack up as many points and kills as possible to unlock a new weapon.

overall, good Review.

By any chance K9, you didn't happen to get in on the BF1943 Beta's did you?

would love to see a review for that if you did Very Happy

**guigaclt** · Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 6:04 pm Post subject:

Let me give my review. It doesn't have all the details but:

Graphics - excellent! - 8/10
Gameplay - very good! - 7/10
Weapons - very good! - 7/10
Fun to play - excellent! - 8/10

Issues:

1) Need good graphic card because of graphics. Older cards may not play well
2) Not easy to find servers and frined. The search and sorting is not available.
3) Miss the JO leaning the head to shoot. Works very similar to BF2. But misses certain controls.
4) Doesn't offer COOP, at least for now. It is all TDM & Attack and Defend style.
5) It is addictive, more then JO and BF2. Twisted Evil

**k9Pup** · Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 6:28 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the feedback Shaz.

ShazMX6 · Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 7:46 pm Post subject: