My colleagues (you know who you are!) recently started getting me playing Battlefield: Bad Company 2 for some multiplayer action. They’ve been playing for quite some time and have been urging me to get in there too, but I’ve held back because of the tons of other games that I still have to play. I still have games like Metro 2033, Fallout: New Vegas, Just Cause 2, Portal and The Witcher to play! So with that list, I definitely managed to put off playing BFBC2 for quite a while until about a couple of months or so ago.
I’ve barely played the single player of BFBC2 at all so far. I think I’ve just about finished the first compaign, simply because I haven’t had the time. All the time that I’ve put into the game has been on multiplayer with my friends. With good reason too, it’s a fantastic multiplayer game. I’ve become pretty tired of the war type games with the Call of Duty series drowning the genre, and I thought I’d feel the same for Battlefield: Bad Company 2, including the multiplayer. However, playing with people you know and working well together as a team really make the game enjoyable.
There are four classes you can play as in the multiplayer: Assault, Medic, Recon and Engineer. Assault is your standard soldier for some run and gun action, typically using machine guns and pistols. Medic is your medic in the field, being able to revive fallen players and use a light machine gun. Recon is your sniper, picking people off from long distance, using sensors to detect if there are enemy troops nearby or calling in an air strike. Engineers are able to repair tanks and use RPG’s to take out enemy ones too.
As you can see, there’s a good range of gameplay options at your disposal depending on your style of play. I’ve been mostly playing as a medic for a couple of reasons; Firstly, it’s the quickest way to level up when starting from scratch, as revives give you a ton of points. Secondly, it’s really enjoyable being able to revive your fellow team/squad members in the thick of battle – just when the enemy thinks that they’ve got the advantage, a medic can revive a few fallen players and turn things around. I’ve made decent progress and am currently around rank 20 out of 50. Not too bad considering I haven’t been playing the game for very long, and not exactly too much either.
The game is probably a bit tougher than the Call of Duty series in my opinion. It feels like there are a lot more hardcore players on BFBC2 servers, or I’ve just been in pretty tough servers to begin with. There are a lot of servers tailored at new players (noobs/newbies), however quite often you find higher ranked players camping out in there to better their statistics.
The most enjoyable aspect of the game has been playing in a squad with people that I actually know, and usually voice chat to communicate. Playing this way definitely makes it a lot easier and enhances squad play. It’s not feasible to be typing messages in a pretty fast paced game, so voice chat is common sense. At first it may not seem necessary, but once you start playing a lot more, you realise to get the best gameplay, you need good communication.
There’s a variety of maps that open up futher in multiplayer depending on which game mode you’re playing. There’s Rush, where there are two sides, one Attacking and one Defending. The aim for Attackers is to blow up M-Com points and move forward after two points have been blown up. The Defending team have to kill a certain amount of players for each M-Com station to win the round. After the round, the teams switch usually, but this depends on the server sometimes. There’s also Conquest, where there are three command points to take over and hold. You need to hold as many command points for as long as possible to win the round. There’s also Squad Rush and Squad Deathmatch, where you play in a squad of four against other squads. This is where voice chat definitely comes in useful.
On the whole, I’ve really enjoyed playing the multiplayer part of BFBC2. As I’ve mentioned, I really have barely played the single player aspect and I’m not sure when I will eventually play it, since there are other games like Crysis 2 to play! However, for some good multiplayer action, I know I can rely on BFBC2!
