Battlefield Bad Company

Review by IRaptor IKraine

Fans and followers of Battlefield games will know that the first Battlefield appearance on the Xbox 360 wasn't as impressive as one would hope. DICE had done a good job of creating a hugely successful PC shooter on the Xbox 360 but it didn't really work as well as people would've hoped. Have DICE managed to pull this one off?

Story

Battlefield Bad Company is set in modern times and has you play a new member of Bad Company, a 4-man recon squad. Whilst on a mission, Bad Company comes across a squad of mercenaries who are rumoured to be paid in gold bullion. Lo and behold the myth is true and Bad Company comes across their first piece of bullion. The main thing that makes the game appealing is the relationship between the characters. Each has their own personalities which of course clash throughout the game. The story kicks off from here offering a somewhat strong and humorous journey with Bad Company. The campaign spreads over 7 missions each offering a similar but somewhat different style of gameplay. The levels are designed so that any route can be taken. Simply run and gun, blasting everything in your path or strategically clear out settlements with cloak and dagger tactics.

Gameplay

Battlefield offers gameplay like no other. The campaign offers open battlefields in which any method of completion can be achieved. The best feature of BF:BC is the new Frostbite Engine. With this the game offers superb visuals, huge environments and destructible scenery. Destructible environments have been used in games before however I personally feel this is one game that truly executes it in a near perfect way. I say near perfect because there are some factors that I frown upon. If for instance the building has a supporting wall it cannot be destroyed, this is obviously intended however if you completely crumble a building it would be the icing on the cake.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics are superb and up top with some of the better games of this gen; Call of Duty 4, Gears of War etc. It's an obvious fact that graphics don't make a game however visuals like this do make the experience that little bit more enjoyable. There is another factor that is one step above the graphics and that is the sound. Never have I heard better sound effects from a game. The weapon sounds are perfectly mapped to the weapons, the explosions are perfect and the characters voices fit the bill. Not only this, but DICE have managed to add environment effects. This means if you fire a weapon in a closed corridor the weapon sound will ricochet and cause a superb echo effect. This is also followed through on character voices, the echo is not mapped to certain parts of the voice but works as it would in the real world.

Multiplayer

Battlefield games are renowned for their multiplayer aspect and this has kept in key with previous instalments. This game, for me is closely related to Battlefield 2 for PC and gives a similar gameplay style and feel. At the moment multiplayer supports 24 players over live and offers only one gametype, gold rush. Gold rush is simply an attack and defend gametype having one team defend the gold and the other to attack. Although there is only one gametype at the moment DICE are releasing a new update in the near future to expand on the multiplayer side and also fix some annoyances and bugs. Amongs those bugs and annoyances are the talk feature, because the game is quite a size it would be chaos having 12 people all talking at once so voice chat is limited to squad chat. This is good however squads can only have 4 members, meaning if you want to play with 5 people problems occur. Having only ventured into the multiplayer a little I can't make a huge judgement but I definitely see potential there and a long lifespan due to the return of awards and ranks.

Conclusion

Battlefield Bad Company is definitely a step in the right direction. The story offers fun and humour and has a bit of depth to it, especially the characters relationships. The multiplayer will offer hours of fun and the added extra of trying to collect all the awards and ranks. Battlefield Bad Company is a superb title with minor flaws and for this reason I highly recommend it.

Battlefield Bad Company is out now on Xbox 360 and PS3.