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All right folks, the question of the day is, “What is the best First-Person Shooter Game?”  What do you all have to say?  Is it Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2?  No, of course not!  How about the newest Medal of Honor game?  Not a chance.  Call of Duty Black Ops?  Nope, wrong again.  Perhaps much to your surprise, none of these are correct.  The best first-person shooter game out there is … Battlefield Bad Company 2!  All right, all right, now I understand that many of you gamers in the “audience” are audibly guffawing right now, avidly defending your favorite game with passionate, if not reasonable protests, but this really is a great game.  Admittedly there is no completely objective standard for determining the “best first-person shooter game,” but I would strongly advise you to consider the following arguments for why Bad Company 2 is one of the best, if not the best, first-person shooter games that you could possibly own.

So what makes Battlefield Bad Company 2 such a great first-person shooter game?  Essentially it all boils down to these 7 components of game-play: graphics, realism, weapons and vehicles, customizability, maps, role diversity, and variety in game mode.  These 7 components of Battlefield Bad Company 2 are so skillfully executed that they create a truly one-of-a-kind gaming experience.  Obviously there are other games which may surpass Battlefield Bad Company 2 in one or more of these areas, but I believe that none of these games blends all of these components together as successfully as Bad Company 2.

Let us begin with graphics.  Again, there is really no objective standard for judging these sorts of things, so you will just have to see for yourself … but here are a few key traits of Battlefield Bad Company 2’s graphics.  First of all, the graphics are realistic without being too gory.  You don’t see people’s heads or legs getting blown off like you do in other more “graphic” games.  Instead you simply see a small amount of red when someone is shot (though you will see the occasional soldier flying through the air after a huge explosion).  Another bonus is that the game doesn’t try to be so realistic that it just looks bizarre.  I’m sure that we’ve all seen a game like that before.  You know, the games which don’t have quite enough money to purchase quality software, the ones that make people look just realistic enough that you recognize how much of a failure the graphics really are, the ones that make everyone look like Frankenstein’s monster.

So now that we’ve established what the graphics are not (gory and mediocre) we can delve into what they are.  One exceptionally realistic aspect to the game’s graphics is the landscape.  Foliage is extremely realistic, and the shading is phenomenal.  In fact, you can hide in the shade in sunny maps in the same way that you would be able to in real life.  This is exceptionally helpful for the dedicated sniper who relies heavily upon stealth.  The water is exceptional also.  Buildings, vehicles, and weapons are also extremely realistic when it comes to graphics.

Next is realism.  This is perhaps one of the most impressive aspects to Battlefield Bad Company 2’s game play.  For starters (and this alone sets Bad Company 2 apart from the other contenders) is the fact that the game utilizes a completely destructible environment.  Not only can you knock down trees with your tanks, but you can shoot out holes in cement walls to give yourself a nice protected firing position.  What’s really impressive is that you will even be able to see the gridirons within the cement wall once you blow some of it away, but even this isn’t the best part.  Not only are the foliage and obstacles completely destructible, but so are the buildings themselves.  A player can do anything from knocking down the door, to blowing out a wall, to collapsing the entire building on all of the opponents inside.  Though you can destroy the environment, you can also just shoot through most walls too.  All of these features drastically enhance the strategy and the grandeur of the game.

There are a few more features to the game that enhance the realism of the battlefield experience.  The audio quality is one of these features.  Being able to hear what is going on around you in the combat-zone can be just as important as being able to see what is going on around you.  Whether it is the groan of a collapsing building, the rumble of an approaching tank, the clink of a grenade on the floor next to you, the approach of an enemy soldier, or the sound of your enemy’s knife impacting the wall just inches from your head, if you listen to the surroundings, you can be more adequately prepared for the approaching situation.  The key to the greatness of Battlefield Bad Company 2’s audio is two-fold.  First, the volume of a particular noise is dependent upon how close the source of that noise is to the player, and second, even the smallest actions from reloading your gun to walking through a bush emits an audible noise.

Another component to Battlefield Bad Company 2’s superb realism is the physics behind the trajectory of fired rounds.  In many games, a bullet will continue to fly at the same velocity and altitude across the entire map or until the bullet is stopped.  In Battlefield Bad Company 2, just like in real life, the rounds of tanks, hand-held weapons, etc. actually drop with time.  Thus if you are a sniper, you will have to aim slightly above your target in order to get a head-shot (depending, of course, on how far away the target is).  Also, when you fire a shotgun in real life, you don’t expect the rounds to suddenly stop and fall to the ground after 20 feet, but that’s what happens in many games like Call of Duty Black Ops.  In Battlefield Bad Company 2, however, the shotgun rounds will continue beyond a mere 20 feet even if the rounds aren’t as powerful as they were during the first 20 feet.  As my brother Thomas puts it, “Battlefield did shotguns right.”

The third aspect of Battlefield Bad Company 2 that makes it great are the vehicles and weapons.  Many first-person shooter games do not have any vehicles at all, but Bad Company 2 not only has small vehicles like Quad Bikes (a type of ATV) but also larger vehicles like HUMVs, M3A3-Bradley APCs, M1A2 Abrahm Tanks, T-90 Tanks, two types of boats, and even BMD3-AA Mobile Anti-Aircraft vehicles (a special type of tank that, according to anandtech.com, is equipped with “dual 23mm AA cannons” and a “30mm Grenade Machinegun”¹ in addition to two machine guns).  What really sets Battlefield Bad Company 2 apart from many other first-person shooter games, however, is the use of aerial vehicles.  One can fly everything from UAV1 RC Scout choppers (equipped with a machine gun and a target designator capable of summoning an aerial strike), to AH64-Apache Attack Helicopters.  Many of these vehicles have the ability to transport several soldiers who can utilize additional mounted weapons or their own individual arsenals to support the driver/pilot.  These vehicles add an extremely critical component to game play.  Not only do they provide the opportunity to wreak havoc on the enemy through the use of superior firepower, but they also contribute to the formation of a unique class of soldier, the engineer.  The ability to attack from land, sea, or air drastically increases the number of ways to play the game.

The weapons are also extremely well designed.  Each weapon’s unique balance of damage, accuracy, and rate of fire gives it a unique edge in the battlefield.  Other more subtle characteristics of each individual weapon (such as clip size, recoil, and type of iron sights) also make each weapon unique.  In fact, the performance of each gun in general (as well as the way that each gun is maneuvered in the 1^st-person view)  is arguably better than that of any other 1^st-person video game.

The huge number and type of weapons themselves also improve Battlefield Bad Company 2.  The fire-arms include the AEK 97, the AN94, the 9A91, the UZI, the PKM, the XM8LMG, the M24, the GOL, the M9, the 870 MCS, the USAS12, the NS 2000, the S2OK, the M93R, the M1911, the VSS, the QBY88, the MG36, the M249, the PP 2000, the SCAR, the M416, the XM8, the F2000, the M 16, the XM8C, the UMP 45, the QJY88, the MG3, the SV98, the M95, the MP443, the M1A1, the SPAS12, the SPAS 15, the T194, the MP412, the SVU, the M60, the AKS74u, and the AUG.  If you could actually recognize every one of these guns, I am truly impressed, but even if you know anything at all about guns, you probably recognized names like the M 16, the SCAR, the M1911, the AUG, the UZI, the UMP 45, and some of the AK-47 variants.  The list includes various sniper rifles, automatic assault rifles, shotguns, machine-guns, hand-guns, automatic pistols, and a few other types of weapons.

While the guns are great, one can also use more specialized weapons like RPG7s, various types of rocket launchers including the M136 (which features an optical guidance feature), grenades, Anti-Tank Mines, a power tool (used for repairing friendly vehicles or dismantling enemy vehicles), ammo kits, motion sensors, defibrillators, health packs, mortar strikes, explosives (with a remote detonator), a knife, 40mm grenade launcher attachments … you get the idea.  Many of these special pieces of equipment, like the defibrillator (which enables you to revive fallen comrades), add entirely new potential strategies and entirely new opportunities for destroying the enemy forces.²

This brings us to the fourth key factor which makes Battlefield Bad Company 2 so awesome: customizability.  As was mentioned above, each soldier has a large variety of weapons to choose from.  Most of these weapons can be customized with various attachments and upgrades, while you can also customize your abilities and vehicles with upgrades as well.  Such attachments/upgrades include sights, silencers, precision barrels, lighter equipment, precision ammo, and the like.  Not only do these options provide variety and give one the opportunity to adapt one’s weapon to the situation at hand, but they also serve as rewards for skill and experience.  As one gain’s points from various online accomplishments, one unlocks different weapons, upgrades, and attachments.  The opportunity to “unlock” these options provides for a rewarding gaming experience as well as a competitive hierarchy that distinguishes the rank 50 veteran who has played every day of every week for the past year from the “n00b” who just got the game.  While it is true that other games like Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 have arguably superior unlock systems with more options, at least in Battlefield you don’t have to exit the match to make your “custom class.”  The vast number of ways to get points also makes the unlock system  more exciting.  One can gain points for getting kills and kill-assists; for saving a team-mate; for avenging your teammate; for destroying vehicles; for getting double or triple kills; for healing, reviving, or resupplying your teammates; for receiving various pins such as M-COM defender pins, submachine gun efficiency pins, savior pins, nemesis pins, combat efficiency pins, and squad retaliation pins; for setting a charge on an M-COM station; for disarming a charge on an M-COM station; for destroying an M-COM station; and the list goes on and on.  You can also collect the dog tags of the players that you knife.  While it may not have the best customizability feature of all the first-person shooter games out there, it does have one of the best and this instantly sets it apart from  many of the lesser quality first-person shooters.

Fifth is “maps.”  The maps in the Battlefield Bad Company series are some of the best videogame maps out there.  Perhaps the key to their greatness is their size.  Each map is extremely large compared to those of games like Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2.  This size allows for many more potential strategies for achieving the desired objective (which varies depending on the game mode) and produces a much larger range of potential engagement situations per map.  For example, in an extremely small map that consists of one building, there is a very limited number of possible ways that you might engage your enemy, i.e. they might come through that door, shoot through that window, come around that corner, or jump off the roof.  In a map like this, game play becomes far too predictable and it becomes too much of a simple test of reaction time.  In larger maps, the number of possible “engagement situations” increases exponentially.  Now you must be prepared to engage the enemy in thousands of different battlefield situations depending on your position, the enemy’s position, your teammates’ positions, etc.  Thus the size of the maps is a key bonus for Battlefield Bad Company 2, but size isn’t the only thing that makes Battlefield Bad Company 2’s maps great.

The balance between urban and rural combat is also superb.  This balance provides opportunities for various different types of combat.  Urban environments produce more fast-paced, close-quarters combat while rural environments are often more prone to involve engagements at longer range.  The tactics involved in these different environments are also different, especially when buildings can be completely demolished.

The diversity of map types also helps to make Battlefield Bad Company 2 much more enjoyable.  The battlefield environments range from deserts to jungles, from islands to mountains, and from submarine bases to refineries.  Lighting also varies from map to map.  It is sunny in some maps and cloudy in others.  It is even night-time at one map, producing a whole new set of challenges.  There are also unique advantages for each team depending on the map (and the game mode).

Role diversity is also an integral aspect to warfare in Battlefield Bad Company 2.  Players can choose from a variety of “classes” between lives, each of which has a different set of weapons.  The four classes are assault, medic, engineer, and recon.  Each class performs a specialized task for the team, and when these classes work together, they can greatly enhance the teamwork capabilities within the match, simulating real warfare.  Each player has the ability to choose to “spawn” at the location of one of his squad-members.  Depending on which class each member of the squad chooses, the cooperative dynamic of that squad can shift dramatically.  If the squad includes a medic, that player can heal his fellow squad members (or anyone on his team for that matter) while another player, who is playing as an assault class soldier, can resupply the engineer in the squad with ammo so that the engineer can protect the squad from enemy vehicles.  All the while, the recon (or sniper) player can provide cover fire as well as the occasional mortar strike.  This is only one possible way to utilize the classes available in Battlefield Bad Company 2, and the possibilities are endless.  Because each player’s class is denoted by a unique symbol, teammates can easily spot imbalances in various areas of the battlefield and act accordingly.

And, last but not least, is the variety in game mode options.  While many first-person shooter games have a plethora of game mode options, Battlefield Bad Company 2 has some of the best.  One of the most unique game modes is “Rush.”  This game mode designates one team as attackers and the other team as defenders.  The defenders are tasked with defending the M-COM stations, while the attackers must destroy the M-COM stations.  The attackers are given a certain number of reinforcements to destroy each pair of M-COM stations and as soon as one pair is destroyed, a new segment of the map is made available until either the attacking team has destroyed all of the M-COM stations or the defending team has depleted all of the attacking team’s reinforcements.  Each side has its own set of challenges and advantages, and this type of game play keeps each game fresh with different opportunities for winning based on the unique strategies of each player.  “Rush,” along with the other game modes, provides the player with many variations of the online multiplayer experience such that it is virtually impossible to have the same battle twice.  Perhaps this strategic element is what makes Battlefield Bad Company 2 great.  The vast number of ways to approach the game, concerning each individual’s use of class, customization, vehicles, teamwork, strategy, etc. all provide countless ways to play the game.

There are so many good things that I could say about Battlefield Bad Company 2, but I simply do not have the time or the patience to tell you all of them.  In fact, just writing this paper is driving me mad, because every second that I spend telling you about how great a game it is, is another second that I wish that I could be playing it myself, right now.  So, instead of listening to me ramble on about my favorite video game, you should get out there and try it for yourself.