Battlefield: Bad Company (Game Review)

It's nice to get a smile before getting blown into smithereens.

First Impression:

“Goddamnit Martin!” is all I can mutter before our position is smacked down by enemy mortar fire. Martin had gone out of his way to shoot a rocket at an enemy tank and had revealed our position before Jeff can spawn on me several seconds before. So basically the first thing Jeff saw was heavy mortar shells stomping him into the ground. Martin and I made it out though, but only to face the aggravated wrath of a menacing tank driver. We ran in opposite directions in hopes that it would only focus fire one of us. It went after me, and the heavy tank shells left manhole sized craters across the road where I would use later in the game as cover from enemy snipers. To say the least, I died.

Background Info:

Battlefield: Bad Company is the latest FPS entry of the famed Battlefield series (developed by DICE and produced by EA), and the first to incorporate the destructible environments of the Frostbite Engine. Traditionally, Battlefield games focus on dozens of player controlled characters on a single map fighting over control points with vehicles, airplanes, air strikes, and dozens of other goodies. As you can imagine the addition of destructible environments leads to a few interesting moments and strategies. I once had Martin blow down an enemy wall before me and Jeff put down suppressing fire on the position. This release is also the first to be console only, a big step considering the Battlefield series is usually known for being on the PC. I picked it up on retail for 30 dollars, cheap considering that 60 dollars is the norm for new games. I was wary at first. A PC developer developing for console? They’re definitely venturing into a wider market, and with a bigger audience means changes to the traditional game play.

But enough of the stuff people don’t care about, let’s dive into the review.

Story: You won’t get your usual “War is Hell” story here. Instead, you get a comedic approach to a fictional war with friendly (or not so friendly) banter flying around between the squad mates. I really didn’t focus on the story, I was in it for the multiplayer. But I was still surprised to see DICE take a Battlefield game and make a story out of it. Traditionally, Battlefield games have no story, but instead focus on the multiplayer maps as dozens of players slug it out, so I was surprised that they took such a drastically different view from the “norm” for FPSing. Usually in FPS stories, you get A) badass hero goes out of his way to save humanity (Examples include Halo series and Duke Nukem series) or the B) War is Hell and any story character worth liking is going to die (Call of Duty series). It’s interesting to see something else besides the usual soldiers that are depicted as “noble defenders of justice and the American way”. In Bad Company, we get a bunch of misfits that are punished for different reasons (Placing C4 in the officer’s latrine anyone?) and are thus sent into Bad Company (the name of the company, not the name of the game). Think of Bad Company as moving target practice for the enemy. Before you know it, the cast of Bad Company is chasing mercenaries, stealing gold bars, and invading neutral countries by themselves.

Notable Story Pros:

+ Funny dialogue between the squad mates seems day-to-day. Far from the usual corny “war movie” dialogue.

+ Finally an FPS on the 360 where my favorite character doesn’t die!

+ Destructable environments allow the player to experience new tactics and routes besides the usual “destroy enemy targets” in an FPS

Cons

-Can be a bit too easy (main character gets a free insta heal with a short cooldown)

Story Score: 8/10 Fun and easy to pick up with a light hearted story. But it’s no Bioshock, and I’ll forget this one in a few months.

This is the main cast. Notice the two idiots on the left, they'll be serving as the comic relief.

Graphics: Nothing to write home about. I remember playing Bioshock and COD4 for the first time and going “Whoa.” as I was thrown into a new world that was strangely enough, more realistic then my own room. But when I popped in Bad Company and looked around at my fellow squad mates, I couldn’t help that they felt strangely blocky and grainy. The environments is where the developers seemed to spend most of the time. The environments alone are also nothing special, but toss in some C4 or a mortar strike and you get to see some fireworks that actually made me open my eyes (and that’s quite the accomplishment)

Notable Graphic Pros

+Explosions are sickeningly satisfying.

Notable Graphic Cons

-Everything else seems “Average” and “Grainy”

Graphic Score: 7/10 Not mind blowing, not eye gouging awful either. Average. Great Explosions though.

Although the graphics aren’t that great, the Audio makes up for it.

I know the tank blowing up looks awesome, but the texture of the ground gets to me. And you’re looking at the ground a lot in this game.

More Splosions!

Boom.

Audio: No famous voice actors here, but the voices gets the job done for the characters. The finer point of the audio is the combat sound effects. The explosions and the constant “PA!PA!PA!” of machine gun fire definitely gets you tense, and before you know it you’re diving behind cover everytime you hear the report of a sniper rifle. The tanks and humvees roar to life when you enter it, and rewards you with a sickening crunch of steel on steel when they collide with another vehicle. Artillery strikes whistle before nailing your position. Playing multiplayer for the first time is like entering a symphony of carnage, and you can do nothing but relish the sounds that are can create tension, but is strangely beautiful.

9/10 Amazing except the VAs. The VAs for the story characters can be better, but sound effects are spot on.

Gameplay: The meat and bone of every review. Everything else can be shitty, but I’d still play a game if it had amazing gameplay. And Bad Company has amazing gameplay. Upon entering the multi-player screen, players are given the choice of kits with each kit specializing in a different area. Imagine them as “classes” from an RPG, each with a different role and strengths. Assault kits are the tip of the sword, often using their gernade launchers as mini wrecking balls, blowing away enemy cover then tearing them apart with their assault rifles. Demolition kits do what they’re expected to do. Blow shit up. Armed primarily with a shotgun and a rocket launcher, demo kits cause more havok by tossing around gernades like they were candy and dropping anti tank mines wherever they go. If you love fireworks, you’ll love this kit. Recon kits snipe, I don’t know why they didn’t just call them snipers. Nothing real special about this kit, besides the laser guided bomb they can unlock to blow the hell out of tanks. Specialists kids are the best at house to house fighting, utilizing C4 to blow down walls. C4 can also be used for an assortment of other tricks (can anyone say suicidal golf cart?). Support kits do as the name says they do, they support. Armed with a heavy machine gun, the support kid can also drop healing packs and repair vehicles when necessary. And the cherry on the sundae is the sweet mortar strike unlock that allows the player to blow away enemy positions and tanks.

The vehicles are well done, neither being “Overpowered” nor “underpowered”. A single player can take down multiple tanks (ask Martin), and a good tank driver can blow away a whole team. For a mix of speed and lethality, a squad can pick up a humvee with a mounted gernade launcher on the back. Or just a golfcart to fuck around with. Helicopters are lesser armored than their land based counter parts, but they pack a punch by delivering salvos of death on the enemy base, while combined with the manuverbility that only a flyer can bring.

The weapon unlocks and rank system is icing on the cake, adding another complex system to an already enticing game. The better a character is, the more tools and guns he can unlock. All stats are updated to the EA website, so if you pwn hard you can show off. Overall, there are less unlocks than BF2142 (a previous installment of the series), but each unlock is more crucial and fills a special niche.

There’s only two game modes, and that might bother some people. Gold rush is a complex gametype where one team defends, and another attacks. The attacking team receives a certain amount of lives, while the defenders do not. The defenders instead are tasked with defending their gold crates, and they can acheive victories by killing off all the attacking team’s lives. The attacking team can regain some lives by killing off the crates.

The second game mode is Conqest (which I have not tried yet.)

Although this seems rather meek, there is enough variability and fun in Gold rush to satisfy me. If I want team deathmatch, I’ll play Call of Duty or Halo.

Pros

+Fast paced combat

+variability in each game means that one strategy won’t always triumph

+endorses team work

Cons

-Friendly fire might bother some people who aren’t used to it (Preference really, I believe friendly fire stops spraying and praying)

-Hard as fuck to fly a helicopter.

Score:9/10 Fun and entertaining, especially with a few good friends. Nothing ground breaking though, so not derserving of a 10.

Overall: 33/40

Conclusion: Try it if you want something out of the ordinary for the Xbox360. It’s definitely fun with a few friends due to its focus on squad based combat. But it’s far from ground breaking, more of the usual stuff from DICE with a few great features added in. With the new price drop, definitely buy it.