A return to Serdaristan, and Bad Company.
By Jayross 12 Comments
I wanted to finish the entire campaign, and I wanted to do it fast, so I started it up on easy so I could breeze through it, but still get the story and epic experiences.
On one of my first missions I used an artillery gun to fire upon a convoy of jeeps. Once I was done with that I drove through the town in my jeep, where I could witness my destruction first-hand. The houses were in shambles, and flames were blazing from the wrecked Russian jeeps. We then moved to secure a river crossing, only to have a tank roll up. We didn't have any means of taking it down, but suddenly an Apache flies by hitting the tank with 4 rockets, it explodes, and the orchestrated Battlefield music started to play. For some reason, that moment surpassed any moment from any other game, and it only got better from there.
I continued blowing stuff up, tumbling jeeps off bridges into the ravine below, calling mortar strikes on tanks, piloting a helicopter and doing strafing runs on dams, driving a buggy through a base while dodging RPGs, running from evil helicopters, trying to blow up bridges before American tanks could get over them, the list goes on and on.
Jeff was right when he said Bad Company had a really unique feel, the constant chatter was refreshing, and I was disappointed when Sarge learned he wasn't going to go fishing anytime soon. The mission structure was far from linear, and on easy I was able to drive past most of it in my jeep, I was also able to think of different routes I could take, I could drive the jeep along the roads, dodging tanks, or I could steal a boat and drive it down the river. There were a lot of choices.
Despite all of those fun moments, the pacing in Bad Company 1 did seem a bit slow at times, the scripted action was limited to spawning enemies after completing an objective, and the vehicles didn't always feel crucial to the campaign.
I have read some reviews for Bad Company 2, and it seems like the campaign is much different. Instead of being able to grab a random vehicle, you are now funneled towards the vehicle sections, I have even seen more "on-rails" type of action, which is fine, but this isn't a Call of Duty game, and I hope for every on-rails section there is an equally lengthy "drive your own vehicle" section.
The environments in Bad Company 2 seem really exotic and well done, but at the same time I will miss the typical countryside that BC1 featured.
Another huge difference in the campaign seems to be the story, and tone, in addition to it being more linear, it is also much more grounded. Well, maybe grounded isn't the right word... the first game wasn't very realistic, was it was probable, and it was an easily followed story. If BC2 really did take "some major cues" from Call of Duty, like the IGN review claims, then I hope we will not be presented an incomprehensible story of globe-trottin' bad asses. The fact that we will play the same character throughout the campaign means that we will at least know who we are playing the entire time, but at the same time might making changing from locale-to-locale even more confusing than how MW2 links its action scenes.
I am very eager to play the new Bad Company 2 campaign, almost as eager as I am to play the multiplayer. If you have any thoughts on the Bad Company 1 singleplayer, or have any thoughts about the new direction of the Bad Company singleplayer, post them here.
EDIT: If Miss July is not in BC2, I might get very upset :(
EDIT2: I have confirmed that Miss July will not be appearing in Bad Company 2... I will miss her sweet voice, and she never did tell me what her favorite color was...