Battlefield: Bad Company 2's single-player story takes its cue directly from the previous game, returning to the titular team of four military miscreants, who after a long quest for gold are back in the Army, engaging in more conventional objectives driven by duty rather than personal gain. The same snappy banter and one-liners between Marlowe (you), Sweetwater, Haggard and Sarge thankfully remain intact, meaning that there's more personality in Bad Company 2 than you would normally find in your average first-person shooter, even if the characters do still border on the trite. Sent in by your commanding officer, Braidwood, to extract Major Aguire who has been kidnapped by Russian militia operating in the South American jungles, Marlowe and his team find themselves having to gather stolen intel, track down a Russian Colonel and more, as you skirt the Russian border, traipsing through snowy mountainous regions in an effort to stave off the cold.
When it's not dealing in explosive action and macho dialogue, Bad Company 2 manages to slot in some very impressive set-pieces, such as dashing between houses and flammable barrels to stay warm by the fire in the midst of a treacherous snowstorm. The game also involves sniping patrolling guards, concealing the sound of your shots behind flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder, sending in laser guided air strikes on a derelict village which is always great fun to watch.
And whilst these moments stand out as involving and memorable, it's the robust first person shooter stuffed between the set-pieces that Bad Company 2 still does best, meaning that there is never a dull moment as you're either racing around a cliff edge in a jeep, rolling through enemy units in a tank or silently crawling through leafy undergrowth, snipping hidden tripwires...the game's interest curve never dips which makes the gameplay even more enjoyable. The gameplay mechanics remain mostly unchanged since the last Bad Company, the clumsy weapon and item select system, replacing it with a more logical control set-up that is nicely intuitive. Your health is now regenerated rather than boosted by an adrenaline shot, which frees up the front trigger buttons for grenade throwing and melee knife thrusts. This makes the gameplay even more enjoyable. There are plenty of hidden satellite uplinks to locate and destroy and a whole list of collectibles to track down in the shape of extra guns if you are one for exploration. Two weapons can be carried at any one time and switched at intermittent weapon drop points. Being able to juggle weapons mid-mission unlocks immense opportunity for experimenting with differing approaches towards objectives, which usually involves launching rockets and grenades through walls or other obstacles to test the boundaries of the Frostbite Engine.
Either way, blowing things up never gets old or boring and the strategical, visual and indeed aural impact of explosions and gunfire is unmatched. The vehicle selections are just as impactful and break up the usual running and gunning with your team, as well as the occasional blasts on the minigun of the helicopter gunship that often helps extract you and your team at certain intervals. Carving your way through buildings, vehicles, explosive fuel dumps and enemy units below is always huge fun that leaves you wanting more. Bad Company 2 is almost comprised entirely of entertainingly overblown action movie-style sequences like these that happily sit alongside a well-written story. Multiplayer mode is now n comprised of several modes, including the return of the popular Gold Rush, now simply titled 'Rush', and Conquest. Squad Rush offers a smaller, more tightly focused version of Rush with less players, while the standard deathmatch and team deathmatch modes are exactly what you'd expect. Consistently enjoyable and suitably frantic in traditional Battlefield fashion, Bad Company 2's multiplayer skirmishes are even more enjoyable than they were in the original Bad Company.
Visuals and sound design are consistently exemplary throughout also, the updated Frostbite Engine makes for expansive environments and a level of destruction far beyond that of any other first person shooter, now enabling you to dole out some 'Destruction 2.0' and reduce most buildings to rubble. Exploration is actively discouraged as any attempt to venture off the beaten track is immediately prevented by a ten second countdown that demands you turn back to the mission area, but it's never of detriment to the overall product. Bad Company 2 is never quite as absorbing as you'd hope, the story, does a really good job of propelling the action along at a steady pace, injecting a bit of variety as and when it's required. As a result, Bad Company 2's single-player proves far more compelling than its predecessor's, standing up as much more than just preparation for the multiplayer portion of the game, which is undoubtedly what most players will be buying Bad Company 2 for.
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