writer: Keegan Dolinar

Rating: 3 out of 5

Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PC

Players: 1

This single-player campaign follows the story of a rag-tag band of soldiers as they travel around the world on the hunt for a mythical weapon of mass destruction, before  it falls  into the hands of the Russians (the cliché antagonists of this game). It’s the typical story of underdog heroes attempting to save the world. It all feels over the top and all too familiar. I don’t want another game fighting the Russians.

It will take you across a variety of locations from frozen mountains to dense jungles. The vistas and skylines look old in many situations. This game is an older title and compared to newer ones, it has not aged well. The cinematics have static/fuzz on them for “cinematography,” but it just looks strange.

You will start to notice that Bad Company 2 has taken a few cues from older Call of Duty franchise installments: The game fumbles and the story with mediocre action. The humor works at times, but mostly it is cheap humor and the open mission design was too open.

The fully destructible environments add my  most enjoyable gameplay element. If an enemy is holes up in a second-story building taking potshots at you,  just send a rocket at the  wall and he’ll wind up dead or fully exposed. The same line of thinking applies to just about anything you see: Use enough explosives at it and watch it crumble.

The in-game squad mates are absolutely horrible. If you press the attack button they will attack. But if you don’t tell them what to do they will offer you all the help of a five-year-old. They get sidetracked, shooting walls or running away from the battle. Bad Company 2 does not live up to my standards of AI squadmates that help.

Overall, this game suffers from major errors; the levels are too open in the campaign, the AI is trash and the storyline is overused with the endless waves of enemies and flat story. But it does deliver a quality multiplayer experience. The game spawns you into the middle of an active battle peppered with drivable vehicles, including my favorite: the tank. The open maps are the best thing that could happen in multiplayer mode and they are the highlight of the game for me. The multiplayer of Bad Company 2 has pulled it out of the failure abyss.