Battlefield: Bad Company

Battlefield Bad Company could have used a bit more polish, but still plays as a Battlefield game should.

On the surface Battlefield Bad Company is just another Battlefield game where you can play as several classes of infantry and quickly hop into light vehicles, APCs, tanks, and helicopters.  Play it for a bit and it doesn’t take long to notice some new and significant additions such as a tangible single player game, destructible environments, but also a lot of small bugs / flaws.

Unlike most games where explosions are limited to a cut scene or are just a pretty looking graphical effects, blowing stuff up in Battlefield Bad Company really matters.   While the environments are not entirely destructible most any tree, building or man made structure you see in Battlefield Bad Company can be either be completely or partially destroyed, and not just with a tank or APC.  RPGs, grenades, and grenade launchers (available on any assault rifle) can blow holes in the most solid of sand bag walls and concrete bunkers.  This opens up a whole new game play element where you can destroy your opponent’s cover and expose him.   Need to get into a building and don’t want to go in thru the front door?  Blast a hole in it.  Is your target behind the wall of that building?  Blast away his cover and expose him.  Of course. your opponent can do that to you too.

Another unique element to Battlefield Bad Company is a legitimate Battlefield single player campaign.  While the single player campaign might not stand up to something like Call of Duty 4, this campaign is far beyond the simple bot filled multiplayer maps that Battlefield games used to offer.  You follow the story, yes an actual story, of Bad Company.  They’re a misfit group of four expendable solders thrown into a war they don’t understand, toss in some mercenary gold and the story gets interesting from there.  The story is helped along by some legitimately funny dialogue.  The only disappointment with the story is that there is a period where you’re just traversing some maps back and forth without much plot moment a few times leaving that distinct “this feels like filler” impression.

Also breaking from Battlefield games tradition is that the single player campaign can be legitimately challenging.  While the AI doesn’t do a great deal of effectively taking cover it almost isn’t necessary.  What the AI can do is shoot well, very well.  The AI is such a good shot and as soon as they see you they’ll be landing hits on your body.  Ironically this is not so much a problem with AI snipers as if you just keep moving it seems they’ll never hit you, but any enemy AI with an assault rifle may as well be a sniper as they’re very good at long range even when you’re just peaking your head out from behind a rock.  The power of the AI solders are magnified when you consider that despite the fact that Bad Company is made up of four solders you’ll find that your squad mates aren’t very good at anything beyond standing out in the open and complaining that they’re being shot.  You need to be an army of one in Battlefield Bad Company.

There are a couple aspects that help ease up on the single player difficulty but to some extent they seem more like contrivances put in place to fix other issues.  One is that you carry this medical auto injector thing.  Each time you use it you recover health points and use of it is only limited by time.  Essentially you can only use it once about every thirty seconds or so, but beyond that there is no limit.  That is a good thing because once the AI starts using their grenade launchers more often you’ll be stabbing yourself with it a great deal.  Also the game has a Bioshock sort of death sequence where when you die you restart at the nearest checkpoint, but any damage you did or enemies you killed are still dead and some vehicles you may have been using when killed will often respawn in their associated location.

Multiplayer is where the Battlefield series has historically shined and Battlefield Bad Company is no exception.  It is the same action you would expect where one minute you’re marching across a field as an infantry, next you’re driving a tank, and next you’re on foot again manning an anti tank weapon to destroy an opponents tank.  It is fun and as furious as ever. 

The only currently available multiplayer mode is called “gold rush” and unlike past Battlefield games there are distinct offensive and defensive teams.  One side defends a position holding two gold crates while another side tries to make their way too the crates in order to plant a bomb, and hopefully prevent the defenders from defusing it.  If the attackers manage to destroy the crates then the defenders fall back to the next position on the map.  The attackers do have limited resources and if they don’t keep capturing crates over time they will loose the game.  If the attackers keep pushing the defenders back and capture all the crates they win.  Gold rush is a fine multiplayer mode and while the developers have reported that they will release the traditional base capturing / ticket system later for free it is a bit disappointing it isn’t there from the start.

Battlefield Bad Company also has a leveling / unlockable weapons system built into the multiplayer.  It’s not as elaborate or flexible as some recent games since you can’t build your own classes, but it works and since you level up fairly.  EA has included methods to purchase unlockable weapons.  Fortunately, this doesn’t seem to provide new players much advantage.

What does get in the way at times with Battlefield Bad Company are a pile of small bugs and flaws.   As previously mentioned the single player AI are all great shots, but they seem to have advantages in other ways as well.  Along with the destructible environment comes the ability to knock down big trees.  These fallen trees can obscure your view.   However, in the single player game they do not seem obscure the enemy AI’s view of you.  So if a tree has fallen near you don’t look to that tree for cover, the enemy AI will keep landing shots despite the fact that you should be fairly well hidden.  This goes even beyond trees as once you run into a building the enemy AI seems to know exactly what path to take to accidentally discover you.  Toss in later stages in the game when the AI starts using grenade launchers (just as accurately as they shoot) and it can get frustrating.

The destructible environments also have some flaws.  Those trees you can knock down?  While that might be useful in multiplayer to provide a bit of cover, much like enemy bodies in most games they eventually just evaporate and do so quite quickly.  Hiding near a fallen tree in multiplayer?  Be careful as it doesn’t take long for it to just up and disappear leaving you standing alone in the field, so very alone.

When destroying buildings you have to work the system a bit as the buildings are not entirely destructible.  When you punch a hole in a building you have to pick the right spot to get a man sized hole.  If you hit part of the building not meant to be destroyed you’ll have no affect whatsoever on the building.  After time you’ll learn to memorize where to hit each building wall (there aren’t may), but that feels fairly artificial doing that and in multiplayer many players know exactly where to sand so they can walk out unscathed despite a tank pounding on the trailer they’re hiding in.

There are also misc issues in the single player game with AI characters suddenly appearing in front of you, getting stuck on buildings, their animation being displayed wrong (they look like they’re looking one direction when in fact they’re facing / shooting in another), and some hit detection issues when coming around corners.  Thankfully none of the issues are game ending or breaking flaws.

In the end Battlefield Bad Company takes the well proven Battlefield formula and adds some welcome new feature.  It is a bit disappointing the game didn’t get a bit more time to work out some of the flaws and polish some of the new ides, but the game is still a blast.