4/5 ★ – WrathofBen's review of Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

Now THIS is what I’m talking about!!! THIS is Battlefield!!! After the lackluster Bad Company, I was worried the sequel would follow suit. I am so happy to be wrong, because this game ROCKED!!! It is an improvement in every aspect from the previous game. Again, I can’t review multiplayer because servers have been shut down at the time of writing this. But on campaign alone, I have plenty of thoughts to give this a pretty positive review. The game starts in a WWII flashback during an undercover operation known as Aurora. We learn of an experimental weapon that was tested here and rumored to be lost forever. Flash forward to our friends in Bad Company, Sargent Redford, Haggard, Sweetwater and Marlowe. We are reassigned to find intel on this weapon and keep it from getting into Russian hands. Right off the bat, the stakes are high, and the game opens up to let you soak in all the new features it has to offer. From improved destructible environments, new weapons, better controls, smarter teammates and more streamlined but detailed level design, it’s hard to find a problem with this game’s overall design! All of it just works! If I had to say anything critical, I would say the game was a bit too easy towards the first half. I was playing on Hard, and barely ran into issues until the end. The other thing being that this game seemed to take its M rating a bit TOO seriously with the writing. It wasn’t until later in the game that Haggard and Sweetwater seemed like themselves, because they were too busy using their newly granted f-bomb that these games became obsessed with using over ACTUAL creative lines. After the initial introduction of our helicopter pilot, Flynn, the team lightens up a bit and acts like their former selves from the previous game. Seriously, the characters in these two games are SO much fun. Vehicles are another massively improved aspect of the game. They control SO much better and have a lot more variety put to them. They’re actually really fun to drive, and I never got tired of it. Sound design and graphics have improved so much in this game. And from what I can tell, it’s running on the same Frostbite engine as the first game. Holy crap, the difference between the two games is unreal! I was also impressed with how great the audio mixing was in this game, with missiles flying past me feeling like they ACTUALLY flew by my ears. Seriously, it sometimes scared the crap out of me. The soundtrack is probably the game’s biggest technical flop. Not only is it missing the iconic Battlefield theme, but there just aren’t that many memorable tracks. All in all, this game is a masterpiece compared to the last game. I’m so happy this was such a fun experience, even if it was a bit on the short side. Unfortunately, I can’t play any of the DLC because it’s all delisted. The only reason I can even play it on my Series X is because I have the physical disc. Otherwise, I wouldn’t even be able to play it. For some reason, EA removed both Bad Company games from online marketplaces. I’m assuming they did this when the servers for these games came down, but there’s still single player content getting lost in all this. Still, I had a great time playing this game, and it deserves my 8/10 rating. I hope I feel this way or better about Battlefield 3. Maybe someday, we’ll get that Bad Company 3…