Battlefield Bad Company 2 Hands-on Impressions

On Thursday Dice and EA dropped the Battlefield Bad Company 2 Multiplayer Beta on the PS3. While the Beta is only one map and one mode, it really shows off many aspects of the game. The Beta takes place on the Arica Harbour map, which is a small harbour town located between mountains and the waters of South America. The map is bright and sandy, and has plenty of buildings, and other structures to take cover in and blow up. The Beta also only features a single game mode, Rush Mode. Rush Mode is like search and destroy. One team is defending 2 crates, and the other is trying to blow them up. But don’t worry BBC2 makes the game more interesting then it sounds. FIrst the attacking team has a limited number of spawns, once they are at 0 they lose. Next once the first set of crates are blown up the defenders “lose that base” and then have to fall back and protect 2 more crates, lose those and fall back again, there are a total of 4 sets of crates to destroy or protect, leading for a decent length match.

While the beta might be limited in the map and game mode department, it doesn’t limit the weapons as much. The game is going to use a rather simple load-out system. You can choose, either Assualt, Engineer, Medic or Recon. Each of those have different strengths and specialized load-outs. For instance the engineer is the only one with an RPG to take care of tanks, while Recons have C4 type charges. All the load-outs can also be customized, and as you rank up you earn points when using each to unlock better weapons.
The graphics are nothing short of top notch. Similar to Bad Company, BBC2 has a very destructive environment. If your getting picked off by snipers, a quick RPG to the wall they are behind will cause major damage as well as ruin their sniping position. Smoke, Dirt and other particles also look amazing. At one point I had a great sniping position only for it to be ruined by the smoke of a blown up and smoldering tank. Besides the actual great environment graphics the H.U.D. is also very well done. As you enter tanks or take over remote helicopters, your screen will change to a video display look of the actual vehicle cameras. These changes of camera looks, really make you feel like you are in the middle of battle.
The controls are rather simple and use the directional pad similar to COD:MW to access your specialized equipment. However as mentioned above there are vehicles, which is what really sets it apart from COD:MW. Some of the vehicles in the Beta include, tanks, Humvees, quads, and the very fun remote control helicopter UAV. These vehicles except the UAV have multiple sitting positions, the tank has a drive/cannon seat, as well as a gunner. The quad has a drivers and rear facing passenger. The vehicle controls are also very easy and work well. The left stick controls direction while right stick controls turret moves. Badcompany23 Overall the game is amazing, while many are comparing it to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, its hard to say which is better. Both games have major differences, COD is faster, lacks the same level of user control vehicles, and has smaller maps, while Bad Company 2 is a tad slower paced, has different vehicles, and at least one large map. Both games are solid, and BBC2 won’t be out untill March so pick-up MW2 now, and BBC2 in March, they are both amazing games and will suck up tons of your time.