Do you have what it takes to get a review published right here on Kotaku? Alex does, as he reviews the game you all seem to be playing right now.
Yes, that’s right, we’re now publishing reader reviews here on Kotaku. This is your chance to deliver sensible game purchasing advice to the rest of the Kotaku community.
And thanks to the very kind chaps at Madman Entertainment, purveyor of all kinds of cool, indie and esoteric film, the best reader review we publish each month will win a prize pack containing ten of the latest Madman DVD releases.
This review was submitted by Alex Walker. If you’ve played Bad Company 2, or just want to ask Alex more about it, leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (PC)
One of the most anticipated games of the year, Bad Company 2 shows that with a lot of time and effort, you too can produce less-than-impressive first-person shooters. So what stopped this from being one of the games of all year? A Bad Company, of course.
Loved
Snowmobiles Are For Pussies: While the campaign is strung together with another small-team-saves-world-from-terrorist plot, it’s bound by the wacky humour from the boys in the Bad Company. Not content with off-the-cuff dialogue mid-fight, Sarge and the team keep the game flowing with jokes, references to Predator and even a jab at Modern Warfare 2. If you’re sick of your games taking themselves too seriously, Bad Company 2 has you covered.
Variety: In the space of five minutes, you could fly a helicopter, switch to the gunners position, take out an M-COM station by collapsing the building upon itself, parachute out, shoot an enemy in the head while they drive a jeep and then leave a trail of dust – and roadkill – in your wake. It’s the best multiplayer experience you’ll have this year.
That Lush Green Grass: Graphically, this game is impressive. The landscapes are as detailed as they are vast, and being able to spot an enemy sniper from a good kilometre away has always been one of the main attractions of a Battlefield game. You can even see from one side of the map to the other on the lowest graphics settings, which is a bonus for gamers on ancient rigs.
Hated
Job Cuts: After playing Bad Company 2, you might think EA had cut their entire QA staff. There are so many bugs that the game feels unfinished. Why weren’t the EA servers working on launch? Why does the scoreboard still have MP_KILLS_DEATHS on it? For a publisher as large as EA, these things are just sloppy. But even those bugs don’t compare to the nightmare that is the…
Server Browser: If Satan wanted to take punishment on gamers, he couldn’t ask for anything better than this. There isn’t a single aspect of the browser that works as intended – honest.
The main browser window doesn’t properly refresh all the servers in the list. It’s faster to add servers to your favourites tab, but that only works some of the time. And even then the browser will only refresh part of the list. But the ultimate is just trying to play. Sometimes, it’ll say waiting for data – only to go back to the server browser. Other times, you’ll be signed out of the EA servers while you’re trying to join a server, forcing you to go back through the login process again.
Bad Company 2 is one of the most fun titles you’ll play all year. The campaign serves as a warm-up for the multi-player, which is great when the bugs and authentication problems don’t get in the way – and they will get in the way, which is a joke for $90.
Reviewed by: Alex Walker
You can have your Reader Review published on Kotaku. Send your review to us at the usual address. Make sure it’s written in the same format as above and in under 500 words – yes, we’ve upped the word limit. We’ll publish the best ones we get and the best of the month will win a Madman DVD prize pack.
Leave a Reply