Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is a 2010 first-person shooter game developed by DICE and published by Electronic Arts for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, iOS, Android and Kindle Fire systems. It is a direct sequel to Battlefield: Bad Company and is part of the Battlefield game series. It was released worldwide in March 2010. The iOS port was released on the App Store on December 16, 2010. The Android and Kindle Fire versions were released in June 2012.
The game is primarily a squad-level first-person shooter based in a contemporary modern warfare setting. Additionally, the game includes a single-player campaign, where the player re-assumes the role of Preston Marlowe, the protagonist of the original game, and his squad as they attempt to stop a Russian super-weapon. The game's Frostbite 1.5 engine allows for destructible environments. Multiplayer maps, which allow for five different game modes, contain a wide selection of vehicles, aircraft and emplacements.
The game was met with positive reception from critics, garnering a mean of 88 from aggregator Metacritic for the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions, and 87 for the PC version. It became a commercial success, selling more than twelve million units since its initial release. Seven VIP map packs, as well as a downloadable game mode, were added after launch; an expansion pack, Battlefield: Bad Company 2: Vietnam, released on December 21, 2010.
A follow-up, Battlefield 3, was released on October 25, 2011.
Gameplay
While Bad Company 2 is primarily a first-person shooter, it follows other games in the series by allowing the player to control certain vehicles, including ATVs, APCs, tanks, and helicopters. On foot, players are given access to a variety of real-world small arms such as assault rifles and machine guns. Players can also jump, crouch, and sprint. They can carry one primary weapon and a pistol in multiplayer, or two primary weapons in single-player, as well as grenades and other equipment. Players can fire "from the hip", but zooming in and using iron sights, reflex sights, or telescopic sights will provide much better accuracy when shooting.Bad Company 2 heavily emphasizes destructible environments. Large sections of most buildings can be destroyed by explosives, and some walls and fences break down under barrages of bullets, with the game's physics engine realistically simulating the destruction.
The game utilizes a "regenerating health" system, rather than giving players health points as older games in the Battlefield series have done. To accommodate this in multiplayer, the "Medic" equipment now accelerates health regeneration rather than directly restoring the player's health. If the player is wounded, they must take cover and avoid damage in order to regain health. A heavily wounded player will see dirt and blood around the edges of the screen, as an illustration of injury.
Single-player
Bad Company 2 features a story-driven single-player campaign. For most of the narrative, the player takes control of Preston Marlowe, one of the members of the titular "Bad Company". The exception to this is the first mission, which is set prior to the rest of the campaign. Each mission is divided into a series of objectives, often interspersed with cutscenes which simulate the style of war films. While the other members of Bad Company will engage in combat, the game relies upon the player to complete the objectives and kill most of the enemies. Although the player's computer-controlled allies can never die, they cannot carry out objectives. Aside from infantry combat, the campaign contains several missions in which the player controls a vehicle, or mans a weapon turret while a teammate controls the vehicle.Each weapon in the campaign is considered a collectible - the first time the player picks up that type of weapon, a "Collectable Unlocked" message appears. There are also sensor stations throughout the campaign which the player can find and destroy - this is also recorded in the campaign stats. "Supply Drop" crates are scattered throughout the missions, where the player can exchange weapons and replenish ammo. The Supply Drop crates will remember any weapon the player picks up and this weapon will then be available for the rest of the campaign.
Multiplayer
Multiplayer is class-based, with four classes: Assault, Engineer, Medic, and Recon. Each class has a variety of unique weapons and equipment, and serves a specific role in combat. There are also some weapons that can be used by any class, such as pistols and shotguns. Each class gains experience and levels up separately.New items are unlocked by earning experience points, which are gained for performing actions conducive to the goals of the player's team, such as eliminating enemy players, healing teammates, or capturing or defending points of interest. These points count towards a total of 50 ranks. Bonuses to the base number of points can be awarded under certain circumstances.
Multiplayer mode features 15 vehicles, including new additions, such as the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk, a quad bike, a four-man patrol boat, a personal watercraft, a ZU-23-2 mounted on a BMD-3 armoured personnel carrier, and a Northrop Grumman MQ-8 Fire Scout, controlled via remote computer terminals. The available maps are set in various environments such as South America and Alaska, near the borders of Russia, similar to those seen in the single-player.
A dog tag system, as seen in Battlefield 2142 and Battlefield: Bad Company, is also used, awarding players with their opponents' dog tags when they defeat them with a knife attack. Players can use party chat for each game mode. The game uses the PunkBuster anti-cheat program to protect from cheaters in online multiplayer matches.
Bad Company 2 features several game types:
Conquest: Features the classic gameplay of the Battlefield series. Players must capture and defend flags for as long as possible. If a base is taken, it can be recaptured, and the cycle can repeat until the game's end. Every kill depletes one ticket, and tickets gradually decrease when one team controls more than half of the flags on the map. Vehicles can spawn once a flag is captured. When one team's tickets are depleted, that team will lose the game. Lost tickets can be regained by reviving fallen teammates.
Onslaught: Tasks one squad of up to four players to capture certain points on the map, allowing the squad to advance. The game is won by capturing all the points. Unlike other modes, the only enemies are bots. This game mode features new lighting and time of day on existing maps, as well as new vehicles. It is available for Xbox 360 and PS3 only; a PC version was planned, but was cancelled.
Rush: Players must defend or destroy pairs of M-COM stations until either the attackers run out of respawn tickets or all of the stations are destroyed. Lost tickets can be regained by reviving fallen teammates. An M-COM station can be destroyed by planting a charge, using explosive weapons or ballistics, or simply by demolishing the building in which it is located. However, not all M-COM stations exist in destructible buildings, forcing players to use a variety of methods to achieve the same goal. When a charge is planted by the attacking team, an alarm is activated and the defenders have a limited amount of time to get to the M-COM station and disarm the bomb before it detonates.
Squad Deathmatch: Features up to four squads, each fighting against the other. An infantry support vehicle is available for any squad to claim, giving a significant advantage. The first squad to score fifty kills wins the match.
Squad Rush: Similar to Rush, but consists of only two squads, one defending and the other attacking. The maps used for Squad Rush are smaller versions of those for both Conquest and Rush modes. There are only 2 M-COM stations in each round.
Synopsis
Setting
Bad Company 2 is set in the near future during the fictional Second Russo-American War between the United States and Russian Federation, the latter supporting the fictional Latin American Militia, a rebel group operating in South America. The game once again featuresPlot
In October 1944, a group of U.S. commandos infiltrate an Imperial Japanese Naval Landing Forces-controlled island in the Sea of Japan as part of "Operation Aurora." They secure a Japanese scientist who was working on a secret scalar weapon program and escape the island on a submarine. However, the weapon is fired and causes a tsunami, killing everyone on board the submarine.In the present, Russia has invaded Europe and Alaska while also supporting China and arming a South American militia. A squad composed of Privates Preston Marlowe, Terrence Sweetwater, George Haggard, and Sergeant Samuel Redford tasked with securing a scalar weapon in Russia, although the device they recover is discovered to be a fake. Impressed with their performance, General Braidwood has the squad transferred into the Special Activities Division and sends them to make contact with Agent Aguire.
The squad travels to Bolivia and engage the local militia before they eventually save Aguire. He sends them to retrieve his intelligence reports on scalar technology from a French weather satellite that can be controlled from a base in the Andes. Sweetwater lands the satellite, and the squad successfully thwarts a Russian attempt to destroy it. Marlowe locates the data server and proceeds to descend the mountain during a blizzard while dodging Russian patrols, and the squad is extracted.
Following extraction, Aguire briefs the squad about the man responsible for rebuilding scalar weaponry: Arkady Kirilenko, a Russian Army colonel who intends to use the scalar weaponry to disable America's power grid and pave the way for a full Russian invasion. He is believed to be hiding in Chile, and the squad heads there with support from U.S. forces, but Kirilenko is able to escape again. Looking over Kirilenko's documents, Sweetwater discovers a shipping manifest for an abandoned ship called the Sangre Del Toro. Aided by the rest of the squad, Marlowe finds the ship and retrieves a compound essential to the use of the weapon while also discovering the truth behind Operation Aurora - the U.S. military deemed it a suicide mission, and was done mainly to learn more about the scalar weapon's capabilities.
While moving to rendezvous with Aguire in Ecuador, the squad's helicopter is shot down, and they are separated. Along with their helicopter pilot, Flynn, they are able to regroup and escape the local militia. Redford gives Aguire the compound, but they discover that Aguire has been working with Kirilenko. Aguire reveals that he wants revenge against the United States for the death of his father, who was one of the commandos killed during Operation Aurora. However, Kirilenko betrays Aguire and kills him and takes the scalar weapon. Before he can kill the squad, however, Flynn intervenes and saves them at the cost of his own life.
While the squad is mourning Flynn, they overhear radio chatter from nearby enemy troops regarding Kirilenko's location, and they fight their way to Quito. Soon, they find an An-124 cargo aircraft that is transporting the scalar weapon; an electromagnetic pulse is suddenly released, disabling all electronic equipment in the city except the aircraft. Awed by the scalar weapon's power, Haggard and Sweetwater consider aborting the mission. Marlowe chastises them and plans to continue the mission alone before Redford convinces the rest to continue. They then infiltrate the aircraft as it takes off and fight their way to the cockpit, but find it empty. Upon returning to the cargo bay, they find Kirilenko attempting to fire the scalar weapon again, this time over the southern United States. Using explosives from the plane's armory, they access and destroy the scalar weapon.
The explosion sends the aircraft plummeting, forcing the squad to bail out, but Kirilenko grabs the last parachute before Marlowe. In free fall, Marlowe kills Kirilenko and is then saved by Sweetwater, who hands Marlowe the parachute that Kirilenko stole. The squad lands in Texas, and Braidwood arrives to inform them that they and the U.S. Army are to be deployed immediately against Russian invasion that is coming through Alaska, much to the squad's disappointment.