Battlefield: Bad Company drops gamers behind enemy lines with a squad of renegade soldiers who risk it all on a personal quest for gold and revenge.
Featuring a cinematic single-player experience loaded with adventure and dark humor, the game delivers the series' trademark sandbox gameplay in a universe where nearly everything is destructible. Battlefield: Bad Company also features a full suite of the franchise's trademark multiplayer options with deep gameplay designed to take full advantage of the game's massively destructible environments.
June 20, 2008 - The rules of first-person shooters are changing. Videogames that engage the player in acts of war have always promised one thing; cover. During times of extreme duress the player has always had the option of retreating behind a wall or group of immovable sandbags in order to escape their assailants. Battlefield: Bad Company, the latest from the Sweden-based Digital Illusions CE (DICE), changes all that.
No longer is the inside of a house a safe haven for fleeing soldiers. Walls, sandbags, fences, and other formerly indestructible objects can now be torn down with a blast from a grenade or rocket launcher. Bad Company, while not perfect by any means, changes the formulaic gameplay of war-based first-person shooters enough to warrant the attention of the many fans of the genre.
The Battlefield series has always been a PC-oriented franchise. Battlefield 2: Modern Combat was the first to make the jump to consoles during the twilight of the Xbox and the infancy of the 360. While it was enjoyed by some, the immense praise that the series was accustomed to was missing. Bad Company not only represents the first story-based game in the series, but it's also the first product to utilize the all-new Frostbite engine which is responsible for all of the luscious destruction that I just mentioned.
Bad Company follows one Private Preston Marlow, a new recruit to a division of the army known simply as Bad Company, or B-Company for short. It's a group of misfit soldiers -- complementing Marlow are Sarge, Haggard and the love struck Sweetwater -- each with his own personality and quippy dialogue. Though the missions in the campaign begin innocently enough with standard seek and destroy objectives, the team's motivations quickly take a turn once the promise of personal wealth enters the equation.
It's interesting to see how DICE dances around the politically charged climate of present day. Especially when you consider that your group of soldiers is essentially abandoned by United States military command fairly early on. DICE could have taken a more politically slanted approach but Bad Company does a good job of keeping things light-hearted and fun throughout the action.
Sadly it's that same light-hearted appeal that hurts the action in BF: BC a bit. War is intense yet the characters in Bad Company are constantly joking around and making fun of one another during battle. The comedy bit just doesn't quite fit in with the incredible level of action on screen.
That having been said, it's clear that Battlefield: Bad Company isn't necessarily trying to be as hard-edged as the drama-charged Call of Duty 4. This is evidenced -- beyond the over-the-top personas -- by both the health and respawn systems. When Marlow begins his adventure he is immediately introduced to his trusty health injector. Players can whip that sucker out, slam it into Preston's chest and his health is instantly restored. While you'll need to wait a handful of seconds before repeating the process, there are moments when you'll feel like all you're doing is running around and sticking yourself with that precious needle. Not exactly something you'd see on CNN war footage.
