HP Fansite

Battlefield Bad Company 2: A PC Gamer’s Review

View of a village you are to raid in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (Click for full-size 1080p)

One of the things that frequently bugs me is how most ‘mainstream’ video games made by big time publishers almost always get “high scores” and lots of praises from the ‘majority media’ nowadays. All those nines and tens sprinkled in the scores columns of video game reviews, games are being pushed too close for comfort to the ‘perfect’ point to consumers, despite having flaws that should’ve dragged down the rating. This is where our occasional PC game reviews at HP Fansite come in – we get raw and messy into various PC titles to uncover the REAL truth: whether a game is worth spending your hard earned cash on… what’s good… what’s not… how the experience on YOUR PC will be (especially given the increasing number of people gaming on their notebooks)… how’s replayability like… singleplayer and/or multiplayer… and the works. All from the perspective of a true PC gamer (not some news editor who happens to work for a gaming magazine), plus collective opinions from my circle of PC gamer acquaintances.

Today, we’re taking an exclusive look at Battlefield: Bad Company 2. For the benefit of those who may not have heard of the game (how could you? It’s been the watercooler topic of most FPS/PC gamers since it was announced, gaining even more publicity during the time Infinity Ward announced “No dedicated servers” for Modern Warfare 2), Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is a first-person shooter game set in modern times. Overall, it’s a sequel to console-only first person shooter Bad Company 1, though you won’t be missing out too much if you’ve never played the first game before. The spotlight features of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 are a vast number of destructible elements (you can shoot through, blowup, cut and/or slash just about anything in the game, including making whole buildings collapse!) and ‘traditional’ Battlefield multiplayer with four classes to choose from, multiple vehicles you can drive and teamwork that you need.

That got your attention yet? Hit that link for more about Battlefield: Bad Company 2 for PC!

Read more »

Battlefield Bad Company 2 (Retail) Initial Impressions

Bad Company 2 main menu!

So I’ve been indulging a little guilty pleasure lately, playing Battlefield Bad Company 2, and delaying the HP Elitebook 8440p review. But rest assured, it was well worth the small compromise (plus, the review of the Elitebook 8440p will be out later this week). I’d like to take my big pair of headphones off and some time off the game to share a few impressions I’ve had so far about the game:

• The retail box is pretty
• The very FIRST map you play in single player is set in the World War 2 era. You don’t get your full set of gear and gadgets at first, destroyable elements are present along with a few explosions but not yet to the ‘full’ extent of modern day maps – think of the graphics in the WW2 map as a marriage between Call of Duty: World at War and Crysis.
• Despite the idea of the first map being set in World War 2, you still get 1) the rest of the game set in ‘present’ modern times and 2) you still get to man a machine gun mounted on the back of some Japanese truck while getting driven around by your AI teammates at full speed!
• Absolutely LOVE the vast variety of destructible elements in the game. Pretty much anything you see can be blown into shreds using explosives, or torn through using your gun!
• Optimization seems to have been done since “Beta” versions and the game now runs smoothly on many systems, including a Core 2 Duo wielding notebook. Nice! I also noticed a decent performance boost if you use a quad core system and/or graphics card supporting DX11 (like the ATI one used in the 2010 Envy 15)
• Again, if you have at least just a decent/midrange laptop, you CAN run this game well (albeit not at high settings) so don’t fret
• Multiplayer is as promising as it looked/looks in early videos around the net. Try the real deal in the retail game and it’s even more awesome (I’m gonna keep that a bit of a surprise till my “final” review of the game which I’ll be posting in the next 24 hours)

More to come in my final review of Bad Company 2 coming really soon!!!!