The Battlefield: Bad Company series consists of two games released on the consoles that put a heavy focus on destructible environments and squad-based gameplay. The games retain some elements from the PC Battlefield games but they are unique in certain ways that give them their own identity.
Single Player
Meet the squad Unlike previous games in the Battlefield franchise,
Bad Company has a storyline and unique characters. Players take on the role of
Preston Marlowe, a soldier that is being forced to join "B" Company consisting of
Terrence Sweetwater,
George Haggard, and
Sergeant Redford. All of the squad mates are misfits in some way and have been deemed "cannon fodder" by the military. The single player campaign takes place during a fictional war between the Russian Federation and the United States. At first, the squad follows orders as they are supposed to. However, they soon discover a gold bar on a dead soldier's body and later follow an enemy convoy of trucks transporting gold. The squad decides to go AWOL and track down the gold. The single player campaign was appreciated by critics because of the humor and unique, fleshed out personalities of the characters.
Multiplayer
Take the fight online When
Bad Company was first released, it only shipped with one game mode. This game mode, called "Gold Rush", was not seen in previous Battlefield games. In this attack & defend mode, one team must destroy sets of gold crates while the other team needs to stop. The defenders have an infinite amount of tickets while the attacking team has limited tickets. If the attackers destroy the first set of crates, their tickets are replenished and the defenders must fall back to the next set of crates. The game ends when the attackers destroy every set of crates or they run out of tickets. There is a variety of small and large size maps. The large maps contain a variety of vehicles such as jeeps, APCs, tanks, and helicopters. The attackers also have an artillery installment on some maps that they can use to bombard the defenders' position. Due to consumer demand,
DICE later released the popular Conquest mode in which teams battle for control of flags placed throughout a map.
When playing multiplayer, players earn experience points and achieve higher ranks, up to the level 25. Every other level comes with a credit point that can be used to unlock new weapons or equipment. Class are customizable, but players cannot put different scopes or other attachments on their guns (except for a grenade launcher, which automatically comes with assault rifles). While playing players can also earn awards based on how they play.
Giant Bomb Review: 
(Jeff Gerstmann)
Single Player
Things are gettin' serious The first game contained a lot of humor and a rather goofy storyline. DICE made a U-turn with
Bad Company 2 and made the storyline a bit more serious. It still contains the same characters as well as some new ones, however. The "B" Company is assumed to have been caught at the end of
Bad Company 1 as they are still in the Army and now working on a special assignment involving dangerous technology that the Russians are trying to get their hands on. Players do a lot of globetrotting in
Bad Company 2; they may find themselves in an arctic, frozen environment one moment and in the next they're in the sweaty tropics of South America.
Multiplayer
Jungle warfare The multiplayer side of
Bad Company 2 sees many improvements over the previous game. Besides the fact that it now comes with four game modes, players are also given more options on how to customize their loadouts. Each class has an experience bar that fills up when that class is used, and when it is full a new weapon, gadget, or attachment is earned. Attachments include different sights like the red dot and 4x scope as well as under-barrel shotguns and smoke grenade launchers for the assault rifles. This system replaces the credit point system from the previous game.
People that purchase new copies of the game are given a VIP code that, when redeemed, allows them to download content that otherwise they would have to pay for. This content includes the 6 "map packs" that have been released thus far, although the map packs simply make the already existing maps available in other game modes.
An expansion pack titled "
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - Vietnam" is planned to be released in late 2010.
Giant Bomb Review: 
(Jeff Gerstmann)
Frostbite Engine
The Frostbite Engine used in both Bad Company games allows environments to be destroyed. The first game was somewhat limited in destruction capabilities; walls could be destroyed, but buildings couldn't be completely demolished. In
Bad Company 2, DICE took the engine further by allowing many buildings to be completely demolished after taking enough damage.
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