Light stuff, to be sure. In any case, this is a review. I don't do reviews, truth be told. Games are games and the design of such are ever more rationalized while the indie movements do the opposite of that rationalization, or some mixed mode of what could be the most stable dialectic known to humankind, conformity noncomformity.
In any case, I picked up Bad Company 2. I did it because I got a $20.00 credit to use on another game AND because I was interested in what became of Haggard, Sweetwater, et al. I like the Bad Company storyline because of 3 things:
1). The stories are mostly fun
2). I like the sound that you hear when you are near a large explosion
3). It shows the major reason the elites can continue their endless expansion
This post is about reason number 3. In Bad Company 2 you have two sides fighting for supremacy, The United States and a privately funded mercenary interest. This is a pretty symbolic gesture due to a simple fact. Under the ideas of globalization you have one economy. The IMF, World Bank, and other commercial interests have more than 20 ways to stop a government from doing what it wants to do. As such, a general lessening of the power of the state can be seen around the world. The state still matters, however, as it can be blamed for things. As such, we see a myriad of games whereupon the sovereignty of a nation is threatened directly by a commercial interest wanting to destroy its consumer base. This serves to keep us reminded that this is surely the reason to do the things we do.
So, commercial interests versus the dying idea of a nation state. Bad Company 2.
Guys in the army are typically in a situation whereupon they want to be out of the army because they want the GI Bill, Love the Army, or couldn't find any other alternative for education. Bad Company 2 picks up on this. In Bad Company 1 you had these guys on the "worthless" squad. But through blind luck, grim determination, and want for huge amounts of GOLD, these guys ended up taking down a privately funded mercenary interest.
All of the members of Bad Company have their own sad stories. All of them want to go home. At some point, Redford starts talking about "adult education classes." Haggard just wants to be buried in Cowboy Stadium if he dies. Marlow and Sweetwater seem to be mostly educated. So, you have a Texan, a down on his luck black guy, and two educated white males driving wherever uncle sam tells them to because they just want to get home.
There are some lessons to be learned from this game. First, even if you do things in an unorthodox, or some would say stupid way, you can still accomplish most tasks. Second, the want to go home, rest, or to just finish work is very strong.
It is the central motivation that the characters from Bad Company have. Occasionally, they feel patriotic about what they do but it is still the same devotion to finishing work that keeps them going. Throughout the game, these characters don't care that they are driving through nations that have been devastated by globalization. They don't care that they are destroying entire countrysides of those nations just because they want to go home and get it over with. Bad Company doesn't care that the centers of trade they just decimated will probably have a tremendously negative affect on the farmers making money this season. They just want to go home and they'll do anything they can to get there.
It is through this that globalization, westernization, the rationalization of every aspect of our lives; from video games to to eye surgery, because predictable, comfortable, and safe. Corporations call it crunch time, Army calls it...whatever the army calls it. It is this willingness to soldier on just one more mile that keeps, as Chomsky said, "the system working for those who matter."
Who mattered it Bad Company 2? Did we actually see them? We almost never have a face to the ultimate puppet master even though we write about them all the time. Every super villain, every evil person in control of a global character is just groping for the thing we know that is out there. It's been reduced to such an absurdity though, that all we can do is read comics, watch movies, read books, or play games that can only guess what it's like to be one of those guys.
Western powers have a tendency to call nations trying to develop nuclear bombs a threat to global security. However, the western powers will only negotiate, take seriously, or listen to, those who have nuclear weapons. Games like this make us think that it's because they want to destroy the world.
Conclusion!
Bad Company 2 has a lot to say about the world as it is. Ideologically, it tends to favor the westernization through its messages about why Bad Company is doing what it's doing but overall, it shows the plight of those who have little choice but to do as the higher ups ask. While it may not make absolute social commentary, it does have that unique glimpse to the very mechanism that keeps whatever ization or ism we live in, going. It shows the American disregard for nations that are not our own when we want something from them. It shows our love for guns, money, and just how far we're willing to go to get it. It also shows how much we manipulate the world. Metaphorically, Bad Company are the developing nations and Aguire / Rasputin (can't recall actual name) are the western powers. In a game style mimicked by almost every developer out there, modernization theory, that predictable path to modernity and rewards for hard work can be found ubiquitously throughout this game. If pick yourself up by your own bootstraps just for a little longer, you'll have another plot point.
In short, this game is what an army game should be, an advertisement for the American way.
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