Nocturnal Nick

So I went and purchase a copy of Battlefield – Bad Company 2 for PC the other day, almost exclusively to compare it to Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare 2. The results surprised me, both in how far the Battlefield series has come, and that I liked it more than what I consider to be one of the best first person shooters ever made (MW2)

The story isn’t quite as involved as MW2, though it had the potential to be. Essentially the introductory mission sees you playing a commando in WWII infiltrating a Japanese occupied island in the pacific, with the aim of discovering a “scalar weapon” (a prototype weapon of mass destruction). Without going into detail, and I apologise for those of you allergic to spoilers, the mission gets cut off half way when the weapon is activated, and you escape only to be engulfed by the effects of the scalar weapon. The rest of the game takes place late in the Cold War, and essentially involves you and the three other members of Bad Company being hired by the US military to find this weapon, buried under the earth somewhere since 1943. The Russians (USSR) are after the same thing, and so combat ensues.

The gameplay felt much more open than MW2, with wider terrain allowed to be traversed, allowing the player to choose their method of approach rather than being told, such as in MW2. The freedom felt good, especially given the need to pick good cover with BFBC2’s destructible environment.

Finding cover in this game isn’t just a matter of running up to something and crouching. You have to consider the firepower of your enemies and compare that to the strength of the cover around you. For example, if I was to hide in a thin-walled jungle-hut, I can’t expect to be impervious to armor-piercing rounds. That said, even a strong concrete wall will be destroyed if you’re up against a tank or two, sometimes bringing down the ceiling on top of you and eliminating the unrealistic feeling of safety that you have in other cover-based games.

As the story progresses, there are a few twists and turns, cool missions to mirror MW2’s ones (ATVS>Snowmobiles) and snide remarks from your comrades targeted at MW, such as “Nah, we better get in there and get it done before the marines send some sissies with heatbeat monitors on their guns” and “If I was on a snowmobile I’d waste your ass sarge!” – “Yeah, but snowmobiles are for pussies”

Overall, I’m impressed with the game. I’ll certainly be giving the multiplayer a go, but from what I’ve heard the BF maps are game mods are bigger and better than the MW2’s little tiny maps anyway, so thats where I’m sitting

[********--] (8/10)

Braid has, over the last few hours, changed my perception of 2D platformers. I went into it a little late last night expecting some interesting time-based puzzles. The game places you in control of who I can only assume (from text placed in books around levels) is Tim.

There isn’t an obvious background story, just a typical “Tim searches for the princess” platformer, though there are definitely subtle undertones of something more. Whether you walk away from this thinking whoever made it was on drugs, or was being really deep (or both) you’ll walk away with a definite feeling of achievement.

As for the deeper meaning, it has been interpreted (not entirely my credit) to be a metaphor for the discovery and testing of the nuclear bomb. Without going into it too much, there are a hell of references, but they are all so subtle to those (such as myself) that aren’t familiar with the intricacies of that particular piece of history. This surprised me as I was able to get through the whole game without picking it up, I was just plain confused.

Anyway, VERY well worth the $9.99 or 1200 microsoft points!

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