Author - Jerry Paxton

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (X360) – A Review

The first Battlefield: Bad Company, followed Bravo Company (a unit made up of mostly misfit soldiers) as they fought their way through many fields of battle in a fictional war between the Russian Federation and the United States. Just when the unit thinks they will be sent home, they get re-instated to active duty and sent off to fight again in Bad Company 2, the latest game from EA DICE.

In a very interesting turn and slight nod to the World War II shooters out there, some of which were created by EA DICE themselves, Bad Company 2 starts off with the player in a secret Allied unit sent into the Pacific Theatre of war to retrieve an operative from Japanese clutches. What happens directly sets up the story of Bad Company 2, some fifty odd years later. In fact, the player is presented will all sorts of gimmicky gameplay elements throughout the game.

You will jump from the previously-mentioned World War II portions to on-rails segments where you man a turret or even get behind the wheel of an M1A1 main battle tank. The gameplay keeps the player moving and guessing as to what happens next in the story and never ceases to be full of an 80’s style of action found in those great popcorn flicks staring guys like Arnold and Sly. Thankfully, Bad Company 2’s dialogue is light-year’s funnier than what was featured in those seminal classic flicks, with the game even picking on Predator and a plethora of other pieces of pop culture. In fact, one of the bad guy types in the game looks just like Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura as Blain in Predator.

Just like in the original, Bad Company 2 features a ton of weapon types for you to utilize, usually picked from the bodies of your foes. Weapon effects are well-visualized and give a real sense of ‘power’ in what you are firing at the time.

Visually, the game is quite detailed (even stunning on the PC version). However, on our Xbox 360 version of the game, it suffers from the usual aliasing issues. Other than the ‘jaggies’, however, the game looks very pretty and features some very well-done level design with multiple paths to explore.

Game audio is nicely composed, both in terms of soundtrack and ambient effects, while the voice work is stellar. I would seriously consider watching a machinima-style web series featuring the characters of Bravo Company; Irreverent, over-the-top humor mixed with 80’s action flick bravado is the order of the day here. Also, the score is composed by Mikael Karlsson and has a very… Indiana Jones-style to it. I would say a John Williams style but, given the subject matter, my first comparison holds more true. Either way, Karlsson should be proud as it is a great score for the adventure-shooter.

The only real area where Bad Company 2 disappoints is that, while the on-rails segments keep things interesting, they also provide some very frustrating moments as the game will not save every step of the way and a death could mean having to start over at the beginning of the sequence. Maybe I am just a spoiled PC-gamer, but it is frustrating, nevertheless.

While I dealt mainly with the game’s single-player element, it is quite clear that the multiplayer component of the game is going to extend the replayability considerably. There are several multiplayer game modes such as ‘Rush’ and ‘Conquest’, and EA is promoting these by releasing DLC packs featuring maps every few months. Personally, I found the single-player experience fun and compelling, and it has actually stirred me to begin playing the multiplayer content a lot more than before.

Overall, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is an over-the-top, irreverent thrill-ride of a first-person shooter which is begging to be played, even despite its minor issues.

*DISCLOSURE: EA DICE gave GamingShogun.com a copy for the purposes of this review.

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Announced with Debut Trailer

Atari and CD Project RED have released the first official trailer for the upcoming sequel to The Witcher, titled The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. The game features an all-new combat system as well as a built-from-the-ground-up game engine promising some really impressive visuals.

While they do not mention a release date, they do mention that it will be a very ‘mature’ experience – like I like!

Believed Trailer Released for Dead to Rights: Retribution


NAMCO BANDAI has released a new trailer for their upcoming third-person actioner, Dead to Rights: Retribution. The game is due out on April 27th for the Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms. It will feature the return of both Shadow and Jack Slate from the previous title and promises to introduce more moral dilemmas to the player this time around.

MotoGP 09/10 Released Across North America


Capcom has officially-released its new motorcycle racer, MotoGP 09/10, to retail stores across North America for the Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms. The game features 18 Grand Prix races across 14 countries as well as a variety of other enhancements from previous series’ entries.

Expect our full review as soon as it is finished!

Kasumi Announced for Mass Effect 2 – New Screens

BioWare and Electronic Arts have announced that gamers will be able to purchase a new team member for their Mass Effect 2 games via the Cerberus Network, come April. Kasumi is the ‘galaxy’s most enigmatic and cunning master thief’ and her DLC pack will also come with missions surrounding her character specifically. The Kasumi – Stolen Dreams DLC pack will retail for 560 Microsoft Points, or $7 dollars.

Checkout more Kasumi screenshots, After the Break!

Skate 3 Gets North American and European Release Dates

Electronic Arts has announced that its upcoming skate game, Skate 3, will be released in North America on May 11th and three days later in Europe. Skate 3 will feature a number of professional skaters, such as Jerry Hsu and Colin McKay. Skate 3 also promises to allow gamers the option to build their very own skate parks to truly alter the ‘face’ of the open-world environment.

Supreme Commander 2 (PC) – A Review

In 2007, the world was introduced to an incredible entry into the real-time strategy genre called Supreme Commander. GasPowered Games touted its ability to display hundreds of units on the field of battle and, while the game did have some issues, did provide gamers with an epic experience. Three years later, they have released Supreme Commander 2, and video-game war is once again ‘epic’.

STORY
Supreme Commander 2 finds us twenty-five years after the Forged Alliance expansion to Supreme Commander. The three once-warring nations of the United Earth Federation, Cybran, and Illuminati have made peace after battling a terrifying external menace. Unfortunately, nature abhors a vacuum and war is once again threatening to plunge the nations into global war.

GAMEPLAY
Supreme Commander 2 features similar gameplay to the original, with few exceptions. GasPowered Games has painstakingly simplified the game, which they were criticized for not doing in the original. No longer can your commander and engineer units help one another in building structures. While this seems like a negative, in a game like SC2 it actually works out for the best as it allows you more time to focus on tactics and not juggling build units. To help alleviate any pains the player faces due to this change, units now just build faster in general. Of course, this does not matter at all if you have no resources with which to build, and in SC2 you have three different resources types.

You gain material to build with from specially-marked locations on the game maps while you can build power plants for energy just about anywhere. Also available for you are research structures which speed up the rate at which your side gains points which can be spent on unit upgrades and new technologies. This is far different than the original game, which features unit tiers. The new system turns out to be a lot more fun, however, and also adds to the differences between sides. One player may want to focus primarily on air assets or buffing up their command unit, for instance, while another may want to focus on beefing up structures with AA guns and hitpoint enhancements.

Battles in Supreme Commander 2 are just as thrilling as ever, thanks in part to the visual complexity of the game being slightly reduced. While this may seem counter-productive, the reduced comparative system requirements allows the game to run VERY smoothly, so when you do get a couple hundred units facing off, it will be incredibly smooth and animated.

Controlling units in the game is very straight-forward and surprisingly easy given just how many units can be displayed at once. You can double-click on one unit to select the units of the same type in the immediate vicinity or do the old-fashion ‘click and drag’ to select multiple units. What was cool is that when I would select mostly ground units and a rogue fighter would whiz past, the game seemed to figure out that I did not want that air unit in my group and did not include it in the selection. You can still assign groups to various number keys but one thing I wish was added was the ability to orientate your groups after setting a destination – even general formations would have been a cool addition. Setting up patrols has been made ‘baby-can-do-it’ easy by either allowing the plays to click a patrol button and a destination, in which case the unit will walk back and forth between that point and its original location. You can also zoom out on the map to display unit path indications. Hold down the shift button to assign waypoints to a group, then at the end re-select the original waypoint. It will convert the path into a never-ending patrol, which is a perfect assignment for CAP missions. And, trust that you will need them as the enemy is VERY fond of sending air units at you fairly quickly.

Unfortunately, unit path-finding leaves much to be desired and many times you will have to redirect certain groups to navigate the various landscapes of the game maps.

EXPERIMENTAL UNITS
The highest-level units that you can unlock are the ‘experimental units’ and each side has their own to play with. For instance, the UEF can build the ‘King Kriptor’ robot, which towers over the battlefield and features large plasma cannons for hands. The Cybrans can build a cybernetic T-Rex (yes, the dinosaur). It’s all really cool stuff and there is nothing like seeing your army of smaller units trudging along with one of these behemoths in tow. The resulting battles can be simple spectacular.

THE NUCLEAR OPTION
The idea of long-range combat takes a whole new level in Supreme Commander 2 with various options of hurting enemies from a far, ranging from long-range artillery which ‘dumbly’ targets enemies on the other side of the map, to your ‘basic’ nuclear missile. In fact, once unlocked, you can build several nuclear silos and launch missiles from each simultaneously! The resulting destruction is incredible and seeing the ‘vacuum effect’ from the blast is a great touch to the effect.

Of course, there is a deterrent to nuclear weapons aside from obliterating your opponent prior to their using them. You can build missile defense installations which are very effective at downing nukes in mid-flight.

OVERALL
If you are looking for the best modern RTS title around, you can find no better than Supreme Commander 2. Complex enough for strategy nuts while accessible enough for the more casual gamers, SC2 is a great blend of offensive and defensive maneuvers, effectively catering to each play-style.

Brink Cinematic Trailer Released


Bethsoft and Splash Damage have released a new cinematic trailer for their upcoming shooter, Brink, which is scheduled for release in the fourth quarter of this year. Brink features the id Tech 4 game engine as well as on-the-fly multiplayer gaming capabilities.

Capcom Releases New MotoGP 09/10 Screenshots


Capcom has just released a slew of new screenshots for their upcoming motorcycle racer, MotoGP 09/10. The game is due out on March 23rd for the Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms. A demo is currently available on Xbox LIVE and the PlayStation Network.

See the new screens, After the Break!