For this review, I will write about Battlefield: Bad Company.
Now, the first time I played this game was at a friend?s house, and I only played the first mission. This was fairly recently, and I understand the game has been around a little while. Not sure exactly how long, but I remember thinking during my first encounter with an enemy:
?Wow. I love these guns.?
Given that I played a lot of Halo 3 and Call of Duty: World At War before this, I was used to pretty pathetic guns. The assault rifles in Halo 3 took far too long to kill, and the guns in CoD didn?t feel right.
The guns from Bad Company feel more solid, which probably stems from the harsh barking sounds they make, rather than the musical sound of an assault rifle going a-ratatatat.
Battlefield: Bad Company runs on similar, if not identical, mechanics to other Battlefield games, and things like Star Wars: Battlefront. Rather than restricting itself to combat on foot, the series includes a range of vehicles. There are standard vehicles ? Armoured Car, Light Tank, Heavy Tank, Helicopter, Boat, Combat Buggy. As far as I know, there are three versions of each vehicle. An American one, a Russian one, and a desert-camouflaged one. I will not complain about the somewhat limited range, as you?re not likely to need anything else.
Oddly, I find the storyline and setting more realistic than other games of the style. Before you demand to know what medication I?m on, hear me out.
Correct me if I?m wrong, but I figured in the Battlefield series, you played as a soldier on a frontline. Now I don?t know much about the military, but I believe an ordinary private was not authorised or trained in the use of an Apache attack helicopter or a heavy tank. Especially not when they?ve spent a lot of time using a sniper rifle.
The story of Bad Company, a group of renegades who get sent into warzones to take down key targets using any means necessary, fits this role much better, given that the soldiers have little access to Army resources, and so would have to use whatever they could get their hands on.
The story mode is quite short, and could probably be completed in one sitting, but the story is interesting and the characters are witty and entertaining. And guess what I?m gonna point out. Are you ready?
Forced vehicle sections!
There aren?t many. I remember there being a helicopter one, and one where Haggard drives a buggy with you on turret. Haggard is one of the other characters. Just so you know.
I do have one little issue with the vehicles in Bad Company. During a mission set around a desert town, I found a heavy tank. I got a little over-excited, and destroyed everything. Every building, every vehicle, everything. I then triggered the next cut-scene.
When the cut-scene finished, my tank had gone. I got a little irritated. I was now missing a tank. I searched around for more transport, and was confronted by the flaming wreckage of the only other vehicle, a combat buggy.
Because of a small glitch, I had to walk to the next objective.
But, other than that little issue, vehicular combat runs smoothly, and helicopters, although hard to master, are rewarding to fly. Each vehicle has multiple seats, be they driver, turrets, or even just taking up space.
Now, onto the Multiplayer mode. As far as I know, there is only one Multiplayer game mode, named Gold Rush. The rules are simple. Two teams. Attackers and Defenders. Defenders have a total of six or eight Gold Crates, arranged in pairs over separate bases. The Attackers have to destroy each pair to gain access to the next pair. To win the game, the Attackers have to destroy all of the Gold Crates, and the Defenders must keep killing the Attackers until their reinforcement bar is drained.
Although this isn?t exactly Halo 3 when it comes to Matchmaking playlists, this single game mode has proved to be a lot of fun, especially since the range of vehicles included gives a truly immense scale to the battles, which have more explosions than a Michael Bay film. No, I?m not exaggerating.
A few interesting elements include the Trophies, and Dog Tags. Trophies are similar, if not identical, to the Challenges system in the Call of Duty series. Or at least, the later ones. Dog Tags, however, are, as far as I know, unique to this game. If you kill another player using your knife, you acquire their unique Dog Tag, which is viewable from the Stats page. It gives you a complete list of every player you?ve killed using a knife. Although this does not provide any major improvement to Multiplayer gaming, it is still a nice touch, and I?d quite like it to be present in other games.
Speaking of nice touches, we have the graphics. Being a next-gen console based game, decent graphics should come as standard. And they do. Everything is fully textured, and I?ve yet to come across an inconvenient grey block in place of a tank. Explosions are dirty rather than fiery. Rather like your?.
No. Serious now. Rather than exploding in a ball of fire, grenades and tank shells just throw up a lot of mud, which gives a few extra doses of realism, in place of dramaticism.
I apologise for the distraction, but my spellchecker is insisting dramaticism isn?t a word. I?m sure it is. It is, right?
One of my favourite graphical features of Bad Company is tied to the vehicles. You get two camera modes, one from the outside of the vehicle, which you can rotate around without screwing up your trajectory (unless you?re in a tank). The second camera mode is from the inside of the vehicle, complete with a fully realised interior. I can?t understand why this isn?t present in more games. It?s way beyond the first-person cameras of most vehicle games, where you have a camera mounted in your grill.
Another area in which this game shines: Sound. I?ve mentioned before about the lovely sounds of the guns. Well, this is complimented by the guttural sounds of the engines, the dull thud of a distant explosion, the alarms of a vehicle coming close to detonation, and the rush of a missile headed to a distant target. As you can probably tell, I am very impressed by the sounds in the game.
On that note ? The music. It?s just?Wow. Far from the ?epic? orchestral sounds of most war-based FPS. I don?t know what other FPS there are, but that?s not the point. The music features no symphonies, nothing like that. It plays as an excellent blend between typical Western-movie music, and traditional Mexican rhythms. It creates a very light-hearted atmosphere, until the later levels, which in my opinion really translates the feel of the game and its characters into an audible language.
Ah yes, I forgot to include this earlier on, but as you can see the second half of the review hinges on my connective.
The story mode?s replayability. I?m not sure that?s a word.
Scattered throughout each level is a selection of weapons and gold. Each weapon is known as a Collectable, and it is added to your collection everytime you pick up a new weapon.
For example, when you first find the XM8 assault rifle, it counts as a Collectable. Subsequent occurances of the weapon, however, will not count.
Gold, on the other hand, is lovingly arranged in neat little boxes, hidden throughout the levels. From my experience, gold is a lot harder to find than weapons, since the weapons are usually marked with an X on the minimap.
There have been numerous complaints about the ammunition capacity on the assault rifles. I have very little military knowledge, and even less about guns. Is 50 rounds too many or too few? I have no idea, but it works well within the game.
The aiming system is very useful, relying on that down-the-barrel sight used by many other FPS. Given that the damage makes no sense, you?ll be using it a lot.
A headshot kills instantly, but shoot a guy in the gut and he?ll withstand at least half your clip before he dies.
I can?t think of anything else I may have missed?.Nope. Nothing. But, no doubt you readers at The Escapist will correct me there. You usually do.
So, yeah. Battlefield: Bad Company is definitely worth picking up, especially if you?re into team-based multiplayer. I really can?t fault much else in the game.
Now, the first time I played this game was at a friend?s house, and I only played the first mission. This was fairly recently, and I understand the game has been around a little while. Not sure exactly how long, but I remember thinking during my first encounter with an enemy:
?Wow. I love these guns.?
Given that I played a lot of Halo 3 and Call of Duty: World At War before this, I was used to pretty pathetic guns. The assault rifles in Halo 3 took far too long to kill, and the guns in CoD didn?t feel right.
The guns from Bad Company feel more solid, which probably stems from the harsh barking sounds they make, rather than the musical sound of an assault rifle going a-ratatatat.
Battlefield: Bad Company runs on similar, if not identical, mechanics to other Battlefield games, and things like Star Wars: Battlefront. Rather than restricting itself to combat on foot, the series includes a range of vehicles. There are standard vehicles ? Armoured Car, Light Tank, Heavy Tank, Helicopter, Boat, Combat Buggy. As far as I know, there are three versions of each vehicle. An American one, a Russian one, and a desert-camouflaged one. I will not complain about the somewhat limited range, as you?re not likely to need anything else.
Oddly, I find the storyline and setting more realistic than other games of the style. Before you demand to know what medication I?m on, hear me out.
Correct me if I?m wrong, but I figured in the Battlefield series, you played as a soldier on a frontline. Now I don?t know much about the military, but I believe an ordinary private was not authorised or trained in the use of an Apache attack helicopter or a heavy tank. Especially not when they?ve spent a lot of time using a sniper rifle.
The story of Bad Company, a group of renegades who get sent into warzones to take down key targets using any means necessary, fits this role much better, given that the soldiers have little access to Army resources, and so would have to use whatever they could get their hands on.
The story mode is quite short, and could probably be completed in one sitting, but the story is interesting and the characters are witty and entertaining. And guess what I?m gonna point out. Are you ready?
Forced vehicle sections!
There aren?t many. I remember there being a helicopter one, and one where Haggard drives a buggy with you on turret. Haggard is one of the other characters. Just so you know.
I do have one little issue with the vehicles in Bad Company. During a mission set around a desert town, I found a heavy tank. I got a little over-excited, and destroyed everything. Every building, every vehicle, everything. I then triggered the next cut-scene.
When the cut-scene finished, my tank had gone. I got a little irritated. I was now missing a tank. I searched around for more transport, and was confronted by the flaming wreckage of the only other vehicle, a combat buggy.
Because of a small glitch, I had to walk to the next objective.
But, other than that little issue, vehicular combat runs smoothly, and helicopters, although hard to master, are rewarding to fly. Each vehicle has multiple seats, be they driver, turrets, or even just taking up space.
Now, onto the Multiplayer mode. As far as I know, there is only one Multiplayer game mode, named Gold Rush. The rules are simple. Two teams. Attackers and Defenders. Defenders have a total of six or eight Gold Crates, arranged in pairs over separate bases. The Attackers have to destroy each pair to gain access to the next pair. To win the game, the Attackers have to destroy all of the Gold Crates, and the Defenders must keep killing the Attackers until their reinforcement bar is drained.
Although this isn?t exactly Halo 3 when it comes to Matchmaking playlists, this single game mode has proved to be a lot of fun, especially since the range of vehicles included gives a truly immense scale to the battles, which have more explosions than a Michael Bay film. No, I?m not exaggerating.
A few interesting elements include the Trophies, and Dog Tags. Trophies are similar, if not identical, to the Challenges system in the Call of Duty series. Or at least, the later ones. Dog Tags, however, are, as far as I know, unique to this game. If you kill another player using your knife, you acquire their unique Dog Tag, which is viewable from the Stats page. It gives you a complete list of every player you?ve killed using a knife. Although this does not provide any major improvement to Multiplayer gaming, it is still a nice touch, and I?d quite like it to be present in other games.
Speaking of nice touches, we have the graphics. Being a next-gen console based game, decent graphics should come as standard. And they do. Everything is fully textured, and I?ve yet to come across an inconvenient grey block in place of a tank. Explosions are dirty rather than fiery. Rather like your?.
No. Serious now. Rather than exploding in a ball of fire, grenades and tank shells just throw up a lot of mud, which gives a few extra doses of realism, in place of dramaticism.
I apologise for the distraction, but my spellchecker is insisting dramaticism isn?t a word. I?m sure it is. It is, right?
One of my favourite graphical features of Bad Company is tied to the vehicles. You get two camera modes, one from the outside of the vehicle, which you can rotate around without screwing up your trajectory (unless you?re in a tank). The second camera mode is from the inside of the vehicle, complete with a fully realised interior. I can?t understand why this isn?t present in more games. It?s way beyond the first-person cameras of most vehicle games, where you have a camera mounted in your grill.
Another area in which this game shines: Sound. I?ve mentioned before about the lovely sounds of the guns. Well, this is complimented by the guttural sounds of the engines, the dull thud of a distant explosion, the alarms of a vehicle coming close to detonation, and the rush of a missile headed to a distant target. As you can probably tell, I am very impressed by the sounds in the game.
On that note ? The music. It?s just?Wow. Far from the ?epic? orchestral sounds of most war-based FPS. I don?t know what other FPS there are, but that?s not the point. The music features no symphonies, nothing like that. It plays as an excellent blend between typical Western-movie music, and traditional Mexican rhythms. It creates a very light-hearted atmosphere, until the later levels, which in my opinion really translates the feel of the game and its characters into an audible language.
Ah yes, I forgot to include this earlier on, but as you can see the second half of the review hinges on my connective.
The story mode?s replayability. I?m not sure that?s a word.
Scattered throughout each level is a selection of weapons and gold. Each weapon is known as a Collectable, and it is added to your collection everytime you pick up a new weapon.
For example, when you first find the XM8 assault rifle, it counts as a Collectable. Subsequent occurances of the weapon, however, will not count.
Gold, on the other hand, is lovingly arranged in neat little boxes, hidden throughout the levels. From my experience, gold is a lot harder to find than weapons, since the weapons are usually marked with an X on the minimap.
There have been numerous complaints about the ammunition capacity on the assault rifles. I have very little military knowledge, and even less about guns. Is 50 rounds too many or too few? I have no idea, but it works well within the game.
The aiming system is very useful, relying on that down-the-barrel sight used by many other FPS. Given that the damage makes no sense, you?ll be using it a lot.
A headshot kills instantly, but shoot a guy in the gut and he?ll withstand at least half your clip before he dies.
I can?t think of anything else I may have missed?.Nope. Nothing. But, no doubt you readers at The Escapist will correct me there. You usually do.
So, yeah. Battlefield: Bad Company is definitely worth picking up, especially if you?re into team-based multiplayer. I really can?t fault much else in the game.
