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They seem more likely to be in the mess hall, dodging some superior officer that wants them to actually do something with their military careers. Yet, there is no sign of extra weight, resulting from too much food or too little exercise.
There's no terror in the way they take out guerillas and Russian soldiers, and there's quite a bit of bravery in the way they tackle one of the biggest and weirdest threats against America.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is a first person shooter, so the player needs to limit the amount of questions that they throw at the structure of the game in order to be able to enjoy it.
Still, the shooter made by DICE manages to deliver both a passable single player campaign and a very engrossing multiplayer while never seeming on the brink of becoming a recruitment tool for the military.
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Plot
The overall presentation succeeds in delivering more emotion than that of Modern Warfare 2 without being as bombastic and as filled with military and diplomatic jargon. There's a quiet urgency to everything that happens in the single player campaign but the fights are always the main attraction. There's little in the way or bombastic rhetoric offered up by the Bad Company squad itself or by the various authority figures they are meeting. Most of the dialog is functional and when it's not, the small talk between the members of the team itself goes towards a more humorous track that is actually quite interesting, even if it does not make the player laugh out loud, some of its plain old gallows humor, the product of the military life and bullets whizzing constantly around the soldier. But some of it is even grimmer, the product of the stakes of the current mission. And, of course, there are the jibes at Modern Warfare 2, clearly meant to show Battlefield: Bad Company 2 as the superior single player experience.
The whole narrative built around Aurora and the now traditional Russian colonel is a bit nuts at times and features plenty of moments where suspension of disbelief is impossible, but it matches the craziness of the characters themselves. Preston Marlowe again acts as the proxy for the players, with Sergeant again worried about his retirement, Haggard focused on the quality of the explosions that the squad generates and Sweetwater concerned about their chances of making it out alive.
Gameplay
As with the first Bad Company, the big aspect DICE brings to the Battlefield series is the concept of fully destructible buildings. It's a more advanced implementation than in the previous game, with no cover spot safe from becoming just a pile of debris offering no protection. The player quickly learns to always be on the move, stopping just enough to fire at one or two enemies and then moving on. It's actually hard going back to games like Mass Effect 2, which do a nice job of offering a third person cover-based shooter but don't have any destruction after playing Bad Company 2 for more than a couple of days.
The set pieces are nicely laid out, with several offensive missions having sections where defense is the order of the day and with vehicle-based fights, which feature everyone's most loved enemy in a military first person shooter, the helicopter gunship (that, of course, the Russians have in numbers). There are plenty of weapon combinations to try out and strategies in approaching enemy positions to test. I suggest that those who have played the first game should try playing on the highest difficulty level to truly be tested with other FPS players targeting moderate difficulty.
Graphics and audio
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 does not aim for hyper realism in its depiction of the characters or in the way it shows off the background. The colors used are a bit muted, with some levels flooded by light and others shrouded almost completely by darkness. The snowed out areas are especially important, the reflection of light of the layers really straining the eyes and forcing me to tone down the brightness on a couple of levels. It all moves smoothly, the buildings crumble in spectacular fashion and the enemies are easy to distinguish, even if, at times, they seem to be part of some sort of clone army.
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The sound is not as impressive. The weapons rattle nicely, the vehicles sound heavy and strong and the voice actors handle their parts well, with a nice mix of desperation, dread and humor. There are some great lines delivered in a deadpan tone. The soundtrack is not particularly inspiring, frequently taking me out of the action.
Multiplayer
When it comes to the multiplayer element of Battlefield: Bad Company 2, the accent is on getting players to cooperate as they aim to achieve an objective, not to compete. There's plenty of experience to gain and a lot of unlockables to look forward to using on the battlefield but the main element here is not going out solo hunting for one more kill but staying close with your buddies, complementing their moves and helping achieve a bigger objective. It's pretty important to jump in the game with a group of people who know each other and work together but the experience with a group of strangers can be as satisfying.
The most engaging game mode at the moment is Rush, the mode where sections of the combat area are opened up in progression, the attackers needing to plant a charge and the defenders aiming to stop them. The attackers have limited lives. The mode is at the same time frantic and planned. Just going forward shooting will never advance the stage, so the squad becomes crucial to any progress. Conquest is also pretty engaging, with the ticking down mechanics that have always been central to Battlefield titles.
In multiplayer, one can also expect to see new modes introduced by DICE and Electronic Arts, starting with Squad Rush, now exclusive for those who pre-ordered the title on GameStop.
Conclusion
I like Battlefield: Bad Company 2 more than Modern Warfare 2. The experience offered is more mature and, at the same time, more concerned with the player having fun rather than with delivering complex views on war that are contradicted by the immediate gameplay. It's just a game about a group of guys who are in way over their head and need attempted humor to keep their sanity while dodging bullets and grenades. And about killing a high number of enemies with the help of bullets, grenades and blowing up buildings.
Bad Company 2 has also managed to truly amaze with the advanced destruction engine, an addition to the shooting genre, which will be central to all videogames coming in the next two years. It fundamentally changes the way fire fights work, making all cover just something temporary and encouraging more fluid multiplayer matches. It's true that it often feels unfair to see your cover taken out, especially after the many hours of FPS combat where this did not happen, but after a short adjustment period, it becomes natural and fluid and real in a way faster paced shooters do not.
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