Extremely explosive action, memorable characters, and a funny script make Bad Company stand out from the crowd.
Well, DICE have decided to add a single player campaign, and not only have they done it differently, they have done it extremely well.
The story follows an American solider named Preston Marlow. After he gets into major trouble with the army, he gets transferred to "bad company," a group where the jokers and expendable soliders are sent.
The cast of characters are the squad that Preston works with, and they are all pretty funny and memorable. Not exactly deep, but memorable.
Whilst out on some kind of mission, the team decide that fighting for the good of the country and international honor just isn't good enough anymore.
When they learn about a large stash of gold hidden by... some kind of people... they decide that it's theirs to go and claim.
Sorry if I didn't explain it in the best way, but that's about it. I got excited when I read on the back of the case, "story driven campaign." Unfortunately, the story is a bit of a letdown.
There's not much to follow or to look forward to, and it's only grip is the mildly entertaining characters. Trust me, I found alot of the script to be pretty funny, which is not seen too often in shooters, Duke Nukem aside.
The graphics here are also very good. Gamespot bagged them, but I really enjoyed the overall look of Bad Company.
It has sort of a grainy look to it, which makes the action feel more gritty.
The environments are mostly forests, and I might have liked to see a tad more varitey, but it wasn't a problem. Sometimes you'll be fighting in a desert, another memorable gun fight was in a palace.
Now on to the real important bit. The gameplay.
Keep in mind, I haven't played any other Battlefield game, but I am pleased to say that it stands out admirably from the regular shooter crowd.
Bad Company offers the level of destruction more games should have. No wall can't be blown apart by something explosive. Seriously, there are SO MANY explosions in this game, which is great because blowing stuff up is rarely this much fun.
Anyway, each level puts you in a massive map basically, where you follow the objectives given to you. This is normally moving from point A to point B, but there are a few other objectives too.
Moving to each objective is a load of fun in itself though, because bad guys litter the entre map, and it literally feels like one large battlefield.
As I mentioned before, the level of destruction is really fun, but DICE were smart and made the ability to blow through any wall more than just something to look at. Walls can be blown apart to create new vantage points for sniping, or to destroy the enemies cover. They usually hide in houses, so what do you do? Blow the whole house up. Simple. Sometimes it feels like you're firing off more grenades than you are bullets, but this is by no means a bad thing.
Apart from weapons, there's also a varitey of gadgets to use, my favorite being the laser designator, which lets you manually guide a missile down from the sky.
Since the maps are so large, vehicles are littered throughout, and they all handle well and are fun to drive. Jeeps, tanks, helicopters. It's all there.
Now on to some of the more negative aspects.
Blowing stuff up is fun throughout the whole game, but it would have been nice to have a stealth mission or something. A little more variety could really have helped. Another point worth mentioning, is that the difficulty felt a bit uneven. Sometimes things were easy, but a few times it would just get extremely hard. Bad Company is also extremely short, like, Cal of Duty short.
Luckily, the multiplayer is here, and it's something that the series is well known for.
Alot of people love it, I actually didn't get into it too much, it's strictly about teams and sticking together. Going in alone will meet with a swift death.
Needless to say, many will favor working together, it just wasn't for me though. You really need a headset for things to work.
Wrapping up now, Battlefield: Bad Company is certainly worth your time, the single player is a welcome and fun addition to the franchise and multiplayer is on form, don't get confused about my comments, it is great.
Definitely one of the major players in the shooter market, and a must buy for fans of the genre.