Battlefield: Bad Company 2- Force Multiplier and Airborne

“That’s an AN-225. Mriya, means dream. It’s an enlarged version of the AN-124. Biggest ever built, can carry 253 tons of equipment. What? I can know stuff!” ―George Gordon Haggard Jr.

Force Multiplier starts right after the scalar weapon detonates: Bad Company starts fighting their way along the Harbor against many elite Russian soldiers. Pushing through several destroyed warehouses and factories, they see that the plane is taking off. Realising that the aircraft cannot be destroyed by the means they possess, they decide to make a dash to the plane through the sewer system, boarding the plane at the last moment.

“Ah, sir, no they’re not, sir. We just blew up that fucking ultimate weapon of theirs. P.S. Invasion cancelled, sir.” ―George Gordon Haggard Jr.

Bad Company storms its way through the plane after the squad acquires weapons in Airborne. When the reach the room containing the Scalar Weapon, they find that it is sealed off. Since they don’t think that they can breach through the barricade to get to the Scalar Weapon without destroying the plane, they decide to head up to the cockpit to try to gain control of the plane and to find Kirilenko. Marlowe and the squad clear out the passenger area of the plane and they reach the cockpit after clearing out the top level of the plane, only to find that it is on autopilot and that there is no sign of Kirilenko, but the latter sends them a message through one of the monitors in the cockpit. The squad agree to try and use explosives to get through the glass barrier. They succeed, and Marlowe destroys the Scalar Weapon. The subsequent explosion tears through the front of the plane, causing it to lose control. As Sarge and Haggard jump out with parachutes, Marlowe asks where Kirilenko is, as his body is nowhere to be found. Just as Sweetwater is about to hand a parachute to Preston, Kirilenko rushes Sweetwater and pushes him out of the plane trying to get the parachute. Realising that he has no other choice, Marlowe jumps out of the plane with the sidearm. In mid-air, Marlowe shoots Kirilenko and Sweetwater hands him his parachute. Upon landing, they realize that they are in a rural area in Texas. General Braidwood’s convoy pulls up and he personally thanks them for destroying the plane and the Scalar Weapon, but regrets to tell them that they must follow him in his HMMWV convoy because the Russians are invading. Despite haggard’s skepticism, Braidwood responds that the Russians are coming in through Alaska.

• Nearly three months have elapsed since I’ve beaten the campaign, but I’ve only had time recently to make these posts. I realise that for one reason or another, these gaming posts tend to show up on anime news aggregators, which makes little sense, since these are gaming posts. To compensate, I’ll make a post about Yahari Ore no Seishun Rabu Kome wa Machigatteiru, yet another long-titled series that I’ve only just picked up.

• Players curious to play a shooter with a sewer system done correctly will do well to try out Underhell, a Half-Life 2 mod made by Mxthe: despite being a horror game, it is remarkably well done, though I’ve heard that the game itself can get quite unsettling at times. I have yet to actually get there myself, as I’m still on the prologue (itself supposed to end in a highly disturbing manner).

• Pure Pwnage’s FPS_Doug maintains that players run faster with a knife, but in Bad Company 2, the player is almost always equipped with a rifle or sidearm, making this (and the first few moments of Operation Aurora) one of the few scenes where the player does have a knife. Fortunately, the knife can be deployed at any time in the game with a press of the melee button for silent kills.

• Ammunition is exceptionally rare for the first bit of Airborne, so care must be taken to ensure that the rounds do reach their mark.

• My first recollection of a final fight on a large cargo plane was in Pierce Brosnan’s Die Another Day, but the combat here is decidedly more entertaining. Like Die Another Day, a superweapon is involved.
  

• The aircraft here is actually a Antonov An-124 Ruslan, not the Antonov An-225 Mriya that Haggard mentions. Nonetheless, it is quite amusing and indeed, the interactions between Haggard and Sweetwater is precisely what made Bad Company 2 so enjoyable.

• The room containing the Scalar Weapon can be seen in the distance: this marks the first time in the game where the Scalar Weapon itself is seen. Naturally, clicking on the image brings up the full-sized 1080p version.

• The walls will crumble, and the chairs will be reduced to a pile of stuffing, filling the screen with debris. This is entertaining, but players should focus on taking out the enemy forces. At close ranges, the USAS-12 reigns supreme in performance, effortlessly downing anything on the other side of the barrel.

• The pistol is used at key sections in the game: it was used to save McGuire, it is used to destroy the Scalar Weapon, and it is used to down Kirilenko. Despite being overshadowed by the other weapons in almost all of the contexts, it is a reasonable weapon and indeed, it is quite fun to use it in the campaign.

• I was able to take down Kirilenko before the message showed up. This is going to be the last of my Bad Company 2 posts, and my Crysis posts will be written shortly after, probably after my next anime-related post. After the Crysis posts conclude, I have a special project in mind concerning Sora no Woto. Details will follow in the final Crysis post (just to reward the readers who do take the time to go through my non-anime content and let them know what’s up ahead).

The final two missions to Bad Company 2 are purely focused on the shooting and pass very quickly: with the goal simplified to stopping the Scalar Weapon, all the player has left to do is board the plane and destroy it. Indeed, the mission Airborne is directly reminiscent of the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare mission Mile High Club, although unlike Modern Warfare, Airborne is indeed relevant to the campaign and is far more entertaining, what with all the destruction that occurs should the player find a USAS-12. The game concludes in a most satisfying manner, since Marlowe takes down the primary antagonist in mid-air using a pistol. We compare and contrast this to Battlefield 3, where Sargent Blackburn beats in the face of their antagonist, Solomon, with a brick. The former is naturally far cooler and more satisfying to carry out, whereas in Battlefield 3, the fight seems detached. At the end of the day, Bad Company 2 offers a short but fun campaign characterised by a rowdy but close-knit group of misfits that grow on the players. Watching their comedic interactions gives players the sense that they are a part of that squad, as opposed to the distance one feels from their squads in Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3. I picked up Bad Company 2 for only five dollars during a Steam sale; while the game isn’t a particularly good deal at twenty dollars, five dollars definitely makes things worth while. Of course, Battlefield 4 is coming out on October 29, 2013, and before I purchase it, I will probably decide if it is a game I wish to add to my library. If the campaign is engaging and satisfying, I will probably buy the game for the campaign alone once the price drops. Of course, the ending to Bad Company 2 suggests that there may be a Bad Company 3, although with next to no news about the game’s current status (or whether or not it is even in development), I won’t be able to say any more about it for the time being.