Enter B-company a four man squad of American soldiers that play under the radar and most rules of engagement, and they like to play hard. You play as Marlow, the softer spoken G.I stuck in this merry band of wise cracking soldiers. Fans of the original game will be happy that much of the original storyline has been bridged into the sequel, although there are a few gaps that will leave some gamers a little confused. Its better in my opinion just to let the little things slide, and concentrate on the bigger and better portions of the game. The snow covered levels of the first game are still a large portion of the games locales, but throw in South American slums, the rain forest and a World War Two submarine pen, and we have the perfect recipe for intense firefights. The action has been beefed up as well as the number of collectible weapons and the amount of hidden jabs in the dialogue towards its main competitor, Call Of Duty. The training level (as it is) is also the introduction to the new storyline, (SPOILER ALERT!!!) the Japanese were designing a super weapon (Scalar tech) of their own during WW2 and a group of American soldiers were sent to a secret Japanese base to pick up a defecting scientist with crucial information. Needless to say this mission goes badly, and we jump ahead to present day.
Our squad is creeping through a Russian minefield on their way to make sure that a transfer between the Russians and an American agent goes according to plan. You guessed it, the Russians can’t be trusted and the agent is killed. Before they receive a kill order on the main antagonist, he flees in a conveniently placed helicopter and the nearby town full of Russian soldiers is declared enemy territory, this is where the fun starts. Although the game is linear in fashion, almost all the building in the levels are easily accessed with a handy military grade knife, allowing you to pick your own path, and depending on the difficulty level, you may not want to just run guns blazing into every ambush point. As always I recommend playing through once on easy then upping the difficulty when you know that there isn’t a tank around the corner. All levels are re-playable on their own and if you are a trophy whore such as myself you’ll need to do so to get all the weapons and collectables, although you can play the whole game with one weapon set, as all the specialized weapons you need will be present in situations where your sniper and submachine gun just can’t hack it.
The game is almost completely bug free, besides a small graphics problem I encountered once later in the campaign, its perfect. The graphics are much better than the original, and the gameplay isn’t easy enough to just take a pleasant stroll through the jungle with your Scar H and not get tube fed a rocket propelled grenade. Following the trend that seems to be going around, the health system is the standard red screen that makes you need to hide to wipe the jam from your face, always the raspberry.... That being said, it isn't as apparent as you would think, which creates many a "wait I died?" situation. Your teammates are pretty comatose but you can (and at some points have to) fight through missions without your squad. Even though enemies almost always see you as a flashing red skull on the Ruskie threat meter and target you first, but its always nice to have someone manning the mounted machine gun in one of the games many vehicles.
The game follows an interesting storyline but all the cinematics don't have to be watched (press select), but if you have the time to sit through them know that the dialogue is mostly hilarious, and if you pay attention you’ll catch mentions of other games.
The games multiplayer is completely online and lauded as a COD killer, the developers were apparently fixing all the problems with Modern Warfare Two’s multiplayer, such as spawn killing, and camping, alas this has not completely happened. The levels tend to be larger and more open with other parts of the map being made available as the match progresses and there are a variety of vehicles that are at some points crucial to the mission. The player chooses from four classes (Essentially- Medic, Assault, Engineer, and Sniper) with upgradable and interchangeable items and weapons, although its probable that you will enter a match where everyone is playing as a sniper, if that is the case promptly leave and play Modern Warfare Two, because you cannot improve upon perfection, the internet doesn’t lie.
Overall the game is enjoyable, witty, intense, and easy enough to not have to tweek the controls or cause you to dirty that mother kissing mouth of yours. Playing the first game is not important to understanding or enjoying Bad Company Two, but it’s most certainly worth searching your local bargain bins to find.
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