Battlefield: Bad Company 2 multiplayer and female aspects – Full Written Review
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is the latest in a long line of Battlefield games, a long running series with numerous entries on PC and consoles. In most of the games in this series the focus was on multiplayer battles that included up to 64 players and maps of incredible size. How does the latest entry stack up against its previous versions? Of no less concern, has the series done anything to reach out to its female fans?
When you join a game, regardless of game type or number of players on the server, you are given a choice between one of four roles which act as a sort of paper-rock-scissors. As you progress in the game and play several rounds you will have additional access to new guns and abilities to customize your kits but for the most part you have a dude who has a grenade launcher with an assault rifle, a dude who can snipe and do recon, a dude who can heal or destroy vehicles and a dude with a heavy machine gun who can heal. You’ll notice I said “dude” and unfortunately I mean “person who is a guy” in this context. In this game you can unlock and choose from several dozen guns, many of which are quite rare or simply don’t exist but you can’t choose to play as a woman in spite of the fact women do exist and account for around 50% of the population.
Teamwork is essential in this game, and being part of a squad is almost forced on you, although you can choose to be on a squad of one. Whether you are assaulting/defending objective points in Conquest mode or defending/destroying M-Com stations in Rush mode (which, unfortunately, does not include YYZ, Tom Sawyer or even 2112 in its music selection) it is almost always a wise idea to stick with your friends and value your own life over taking the life of another. Speaking of Friends, this game does have a friends list which informs you who is online/offline and even allows you to compare your progress and exploits to that of your comrades. On the non-hardcore servers it is also helpful to use the “socialize” button when you have an enemy unit in your sites. This will cause an enemy tank/soldier/helicopter to show up on your faction’s map, and also give you some bonus points if the unit you spotted is destroyed.
The socialize command has an extended role in the game and now makes voice chat practically unnecessary. You can now hit the button while looking at a soldier and depending on their specialty request an Ammo drop, magic healing box drop and so on. Although there is an auditory component to this the developers apparently wanted to be inclusive with this feature and thus all these communications are also associated with symbols. However, the voices really drive home that every single soldier on the battlefield is male, regardless of the player behind the controls. Whether it’s someone asking for a ride, warning about incoming grenades, panicked about a building about to collapse or pointing out a small-but-deadly UAV: every single voice used in game is distinctly male.
I could not possibly write about this game without mentioning just how much Destruction 2.0 plays a part in the multiplayer aspect. Grenades, mortars, missiles and tank shells all are able to knock down walls, take out trees and reduce piles of lumber to toothpicks. An abandoned house may be a veritable fortress at the start of a round, and by the end of the round it may be nothing more but a pile of rubble. The effect is quite convincing and satisfying to anyone who enjoyed stomping on a sandcastle after building it, my one complaint is that buildings always fall as if they’ve been imploded by demolitions experts. I’d like so see them lean as they fall as well.
It is now a staple of the FPS genre that as you play you earn points to unlock new weapons and access new skills, this title is no exception. After 30+ hours of play I have barely scratched the surface. It comes as somewhat of a wonder that one can spend as much time getting an avatar to the level cap in Bad Company 2 as one would in an MMO, and yet the title doesn’t even offer something as simple as a choice of the players sex or gender. Only 6 of the in game models would need to have different faces, although the additional voice work would probably be extensive. Still it doesn’t seem like it would be impossible to include female avatars at the very least for the PC version. Also, I would like to choose the color for the Russian Medic’s beret. He comes with a bright red and I’d like something a bit darker red.
The game’s controls are responsive and you can customize the layout depending on whether you’re on foot or in a specific vehicle. One complaint is that you can no longer choose a specific mouse speed for each vehicle, but I suspect this is to keep people from whipping around the tank’s main gun at fantastic speeds. I personally have a hard time with the helicopters and would have appreciated some way to practice offline, but I know there are some who are fully fledged Aces in the pilot seat. For some reason I was not able to assign my xb360 controller’s right stick to any actions so if you want to play the game with a gamepad you’ll have to use joy2key or get it for a home console of your choice.
At the end of the day Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is my current Multiplayer game of choice, if you’re looking for something in this genre you’d be hard pressed to do any better. It has a good rock-paper-scissors balance between the soldier classes, and between the vehicles as well. Although some weapons and skills far outclass others there is nothing I would say is “OP”. There’s nothing like the martyrdom perk from MW, for example. However I can’t suggest the game without any reservations because of the fact the game is not inclusive to female players in the very least. I couldn’t help but remember playing Quake 2 with custom models with my sister way back in the stone age of PC games, it’s funny how far the FPS genre has advanced, yet has taken two steps back in many other ways.
Review by Scott
6 Responses to “Battlefield: Bad Company 2 multiplayer and female aspects – Full Written Review”
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It should be noted Scott=Thefremen.
Nice review fremen.
I’ve finished the single player game with a friend and it was a great experience. Would you say the online elements are quite competitive, or more cooperative in nature?
Dune fan perhaps?
Yes I’m a HUGE Dune fan, and overall I’d say the regular multiplayer mode is more cooperative in nature, but when you go over to Hard Core it can devolve into something akin to team death match. I’d compare regular mode to something like 10v10 matches in FIFA. Everyone wants to get shots on goal, and actual goals, but the team who works together where everyone plays their respective positions is the team which will win out in the end and in turn reap the greatest benefits.
It all varies in match to match though, sometimes I’ve played on teams where everyone is out for themselves and you tend to die quickly because people rush out to find kills. Other times I’ve been on teams where every squad sticks together, medics revive the fallen, Assault re-supply, engineers fix things and recon maintains situational awareness. The point system and balance between classes is why I’d say the game itsself is more co-op than competitive though. I’d compare it to Team Fortress 2 in that respect.
The only weapon I cannot confirm to exist in real life is the automated mortar strike binoculars. Five minutes of research on your part and you would know this too.
It does get increadibly trite also hearing more complaints about the representation of women in war games. We get it, you’re female, so are the rest of us.
>He comes with a bright red and I’d like something a bit darker red.
Fucking christ, how about something that doesn’t give away your position when you’re hiding in the bushes? Yes, the lack of customization is a valid complaint, this is not.
@ Anonymous
Our reviewer in this instance is a man, so those “trite” complaints are actually more interesting in this instance.
I also believe the reviewer was stating he did not like the bright red beret, therefore alluding to something less likely to give away his position.
It would be nice if it was possible to have female characters in today’s games. It’s just perpetuating the stereotype that videogames are just for men.