Explosions create massive fireballs and cover the battlefield in smoke clouds. The game's sound and graphics make it seem a lot more fun than the A.I. Still, there's joy to be found in the campaign. I don't mind a challenge but getting shot by an enemy from across the map and having to replay the last ten minutes (checkpoints are sporadic) is just brutal. Hop out from behind cover for a second and every enemy zeroes in on you. Though the game asks you to quietly knife an enemy on a couple occasions, stealth is not a possibility for the most part. Even if you're behind a building or another barrier, enemies seem to have an uncanny ability to know where you are. (for both enemies and companions) were boosted to make them seem more intelligent than they actually are. It seems like the aiming abilities of the A.I. If you hopped into the gunner seat of a vehicle in the first game, your companions would refuse to drive.
While your companions are smart enough to shoot things, and walk along a straight path, that's about all they can handle. Why does the campaign hem you in like this? Presumably it's to hide the deficiencies of the game's A.I. Again, this isn't very good preparation for multiplayer. When you're lucky enough to find a vehicle, you'll be asked to man the turret or simply drive along a single path to the next objective. Vehicle use is never optional you'll never steal a helicopter from an enemy base and take it for a spin. Even the outdoor maps are linear, with movement restricted to small "corridors." If you step outside the "combat zone" for ten seconds or more, the game will kill you. Everything in BC2 is tightly scripted, though. You could assault a base with an attack helicopter, bombard it with a tank from afar, or rush in on foot. The highlights of its predecessor were these quasi-sandbox segments where you had a number of different options for accomplishing an objective.
Still, it feels like mission design took a step backward in BC2. There's some of that in BC2 but it's easier to see the story relevance of your actions in most situations.
#WHY CAN'T I PLAY BATTLEFIELD BAD COMPANY 2 ONLINE SERIES#
The campaign for the original Bad Company was a loosely strung together series of generic first-person shooter tasks, like blowing up radar arrays or securing bases. The temptation to shoot them in the back of the head (even though it wouldn't do any good) is therefore low. Though your comrades are not compelling characters (their personalities can be summed up as "Texan," "nerd," and "Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon"), they have some occasionally witty banter. You never have to sit around waiting for them to catch up to you or get in your vehicle, either, as the game often warps them to your position. They never die or get wounded so you don't have to run around saving them. They actually manage to kill enemies on a regular basis I never tried it but they could probably win a number of fights by themselves. It's regrettable that there's no option for co-op here but at least the companions aren't a hindrance. You control one member of the squad while the other three are A.I. Yes, seems like the sort of thing you'd outsource to a group of soldiers who went AWOL. They're now working for the US military again and are entrusted with a mission that could decide the fate of the United States. In the first game, they had ditched their posts to steal a bunch of gold from a foreign military but those events are never mentioned in BC2. The two games at least have the same main characters, a group of wise-cracking AWOL American soldiers. BF:BC2 is a continuation of the storyline from the first Bad Company, kind of.