Good. Some problems, but good.
Battlefield has always been about the multiplayer, and it's absolutely no different in Bad Company. But what Bad Company also has is a single player campaign with a meaningful story. In Bad Company you play as Preston Marlowe, the new guy that is put into a squad of misfits dubbed, not surprisingly, "Bad Company". Series of unfortunate events lead up to you dealing with the an army of mercenaries in the attempt to steal their gold. Most of the story is presented with in-game cut scenes with free moving controls, with the exception of some locked camera cut scenes where you get to see your protagonist.
The environments you are put into are gigantic and it really gives it that Battlefield feel. You are usually put into an area where only parts of the area are accessible, and as you progress through the mission the map gets larger and larger. Your freedom is however limited to whatever is not highlighted in red on the map, as if you were to step onto the red the enemy artillery will kill you in five seconds. The objectives you are given are checkpoint based objectives, which can make the game feel pretty linear. There is never a point in the game where it doesn't just tell you what to blow up or where to go, so don't expect to ever get stuck in terms of figuring out what to do. Sticking to the Battlefield formula you will have a plethora of vehicles to traverse through the massive areas.
Bad Company wants you to blow things up and it is happy to let you do so, the smiley grenade pin further implying welcomed destruction. This game has many explosions, good explosions. The environment is made to work with this, as almost anything that is physically standing in the world can be blown apart. Fences can be shot through to make way for an entrance, many explosive barrels and boxes are placed generously everywhere, and walls of houses can be blown down to expose the enemy. While the wall of houses are destructible the structure of a house will always remain, but it gives a welcomed deep interaction with the environment.
The AI in BC has a weird bot mechanic feel to it, which is an annoyance as you will fight many respawning AI enemies. While the single-player is a improvement from the usual single-player bot matches older Battlefields had, the AI in this game should've been tweaked to make them seem a little more real. What I mean when I say bot mechanic I mean it's almost like every enemy has aimbot and is able to shoot you as long as they can see a tiny piece of you. Thankfully, Preston Marlowe's class plays like an assault self medic that is able to inject himself to full health every five seconds. Along with being able to heal yourself, you will rarely ever see a game over screen, as when you die you will respawn to the last saved checkpoint you reached. Your squad AI isn't very helpful either, so most of the game feels like a solo FPS with commentary, but there are times where they pull through and help out.
The game can get repetitive as most of the game is running through towns and taking out respawning Russians and mercenaries. However, it really starts to pick up as you get to the second half of it, with more variety in vehicles you can drive and objectives that differ from the usual.
Battlefield games have always been praised about their multiplayer, and it's no different here. The multiplayer mode that you have access to at this moment is called Gold Rush (Conquest later coming out as DLC), where two teams are assigned roles as attacker and defender. The attacker team has to blow up the Gold Crates, and the defenders must defend them. If the attacking team succeed in blowing up the crates, they get additional respawn points and push the defenders to another pair of crates. If all the crates are destroyed, attackers win. If the defending team defends long enough to run out the respawn timer, defenders win. The ranked player matches have a rank experience point system that has been present in many FPSs as of late, win more games, get experience points, and unlock more weapons for the classes.
Battlefield: Bad Company is an enjoyable multiplayer experience that also has a single-player with some funny moments between your squad. It's not too short and not to long of a game, feels about the right amount of time for an FPS. Even if you're not into the single-player component, you should still definitely check this out for the multiplayer component.
