I try to keep my game interests diversified.  What this translates into is a permanently empty wallet and ADD.  Rare is it that I get well and truly addicted to a game, so when I do, it’s post-worthy.  Battlefield: Bad Company 2, I can’t quit you.

Now this isn’t my first foray into the Battlefield franchise.  I played the bajeezus out of the Battlefield 2 demo back in the day on the PC.  I loved the open environments, the squad-based teamwork, and what has been dubbed as “Battlefield Moments”.  The Battlefield series is unique in its combination of objectives, infantry, vehicles and destructible environments.  The result is chaos, but in the best possible way.  There’s just no way to describe the feeling that is evoked when you are about to breach a building controlled by the enemy, and you hear an odd whirring noise, only to turn around and see a helicopter smoking and spinning out of control…coming right towards you.

If you hop on the web, you can even see some of these moments, as EA has posted several on YouTube.  Really, there’s nothing like it.  Not even in games with similar components, such as Halo, the focus is typically less on a team effort and more on your individual actions.  Who cares if your team is getting slaughtered if you are pwning bitches left and right?  Battlefield addresses that by the concept of tickets that tick down as your team is killed.  When you run out of tickets, it’s game over.  The beauty here is that the medic class can revive allies, giving your team those critical tickets back.  It’s not so much any individual component that makes the game what it is, it’s the combination of all the elements into one awesome online experience.

It took me weeks of owning the game to even bother to try the single player campaign, which I still haven’t beaten.  It was more out of a sense of obligation to see the content, than an actual desire to pull myself away from the online experience.  The single-player is ok: nothing new, nothing special.  Vehicles are sparse, and objectives are pretty much what you’d expect.  I am glad I played online so much before going to single-player, because otherwise it might have turned me away from even trying the online.  Not because it’s bad, just because it’s generic.

Let’s get down to brass tacks.  The graphics are solid, and there’s no slowdown online.  The controls are intuitive.  Certainly more intuitive than Modern Warfare 2 for me.  The gameplay mechanics are tried and true Battlefield fare.  In fact, if I had to give any criticism to the game, it’s that you can’t go prone.  Yep, that’s it.  That’s all I’ve got.  Oh, and maybe fewer snow levels.  It seems like only one in three matches online is on anything but a snow level.  Speaking of levels, a great idea on the part of EA was to give people who bought the game firsthand a “VIP Code”, which allows you to download free monthly map packs.  This is a great way to promote firsthand sales in my opinion.

Now, this winter, they are coming out with a downloadable Vietnam-themed expansion pack.  I’m already at 3 days played online, and I just know this is going to provide a huge amount of replayability for me.  No two battles in the game are the same, and this content is going to take that to another level with new maps, weapons, vehicles and perhaps most importantly, a 60′s-themed soundtrack for the vehicles.  I cannot wait to fly a heli over the jungle, blasting Fortunate Sun, and gunning down anything that moves.  I love this game.