This game was an absolute blast…literally
Graphics – Perfect in some areas, so-so in others. The character modeling was nicely done, and the environments were well laid out. The unfortunate part is that they tended to be repetitive. Each town, although different, just so happened to have the same building layouts, with the same rooms, doors, etc. This made searching through towns not only repetitive, but confusing at times because I was constantly thinking, "Wasn't I here a minute ago?" On the other hand, the ability to destroy buildings piece by piece was absolutely amazing. One bomb drop didn't just flatten the building, but each shot combined to take down walls and ceilings until their was nothing left but rubble.
Gameplay – They did a great job of mixing it up and the feeling of pure devastation at your fingertips was in my opinion the best part of the game. Rolling up to a town in a tank, sitting back for 15 minutes and completely leveling the whole city was incredible. This could become tedious if it was the only option, but it wasn't. Depending on ones mood, you could either level the town from a distance, or walk straight in and experience some close combat. Although the AI was somewhat intuitive, the fact that I launch a tank missile and blow up an enemy, but his buddy who is 200 yards away is still doing his rounds is a bit off. The fact that an enemy could do damage to my tank with a standard rifle or machine gun but I needed either a missile or bomb strike to do any damage to theirs was a bit off as well.
The weapons were standard, and unfortunately the ability to discover "rare" weapons did absolutely nothing to improve the game. IMHO, if I find a "rare" weapon, it should probably be a bit better than the standard. In this case, I played nearly the entire game with the standard M-16 and Sniper rifle. Using the device that called in friendly fire airstriks was absolutely priceless, and again, the feeling of pure devastation was only a click away. Unfortunately, if one chose to do so, they could play the entire game with this weapon and never get touched. It was my choice, but I played entire levels without ever firing a shot with a gun. But what wasn't my choice, was my company and teammates. Sure they were funny, and I did laugh at some of the slapstick comedy, but to be honest, they took away from the game in the long run. First off, they ran around on their own, and when I was trying to sneak up on a town or group of enemies, they would just go running up and blow my cover. No worries, because they took no damage!! This fact alone took this game from a 10 to a 9 because my team could stand in direct fire and get pelted by rifle fire and do nothing but say "that hurts!" At times the robot like voiceovers were completely off and I had to mute the game several times because of "light tank, take cover!" was being yelled over and over and over, when there wasn't a tank in sight. So aside from being amusing at times, my "bad company" did nothing to add to the game.
Storyline – Ok, and again, funny at times, but there was never a point where I felt that the storyline really mattered in the game. Don't get me wrong, it was well played out, and the retrospective analysis of the main character was a great way to tell a story. But what I am still trying to figure out, is why I went through all the trouble to search and search and search again for gold bars…why? I was expecting perhaps a different ending, or maybe some bonus for replay, but nothing.
Overall – From a pure fun perspective this game was an absolute 10. But the other limitations took an easy 10 down to a very respectable 9. If they come out with a sequel and address some of the repetitive nature of this game, make some AI upgrades, and perhaps add some leveling or character upgrades, this could be an unbelievable new series.