Don’t bring a gun to a knife fight. The battlefield is filled with gold-crazed AWOL U.S. Army soldiers and merciless mercenaries, all madly swinging knives at each other over crates of gold. Throw in a few snipers, heavy artillery and the occasional helicopter, and you have Battlefield: Bad Company. That’s how I learned not to bring a gun to a knife fight. Not even a heavy machine gun. Now I’m dripping with the dog tags of my enemies.
But that’s the game’s online multiplayer. Offline, Bad Company does what no Battlefield game has done before – offer a solid, single-player campaign. Offline, I was Preston Marlowe, a man whose helicopter pranks were so unspeakable he was shipped off to the 222nd Army battalion, B-Company. Dubbed “Bad Company,” that’s where the army sends enlisted men who’ve screwed up so badly they can either spend life in prison or redeem themselves by softening up the enemy in advance of expensive hardware and valuable troops like the Rangers.
The single-player campaign drags until the final mission, running you past hundreds of brain-dead AI-populating maps similar to those in multiplayer. The AI is dim, so enemies rarely do more than shoot at you where they stand. Because you can heal at will and mercenaries like to hide near explosive barrels, first-person shooter fans can finish this one in their sleep. Even death has no sting – there’s rarely a penalty for taking a tank round to the chest. Vehicles mix things up, but until the intense, plot-driven action of the final mission, it’s lots of the same. Most of Bad Company’s single player game is an extended tutorial for the multiplayer, so take the advice of Haggard (the demolitions expert who’d set fire to his mother just to watch her burn) to Sweetwater (the Woody Allen-soundalike and army egghead): “Embrace the suck, Sweets.” The last mission is intense – if the whole game could live up to the pacing of the final mission, it would be a great experience. As it is, the writing, animation and voice acting outshine the play. I could watch Haggard and Sweetwater play rock-paper-scissors or practice their golf swings all day, even through monotonous missions against an army of simpletons.
Bad Company’s multiplayer is the most intense multiplayer action offered by a Battlefield game yet, but it’s lost the strategic layer that made past Battlefield games so incredible. EA promises the Conquest mode that’s been the hallmark of past Battlefield games will be downloadable soon, but right now there’s only “Gold Rush,” departing from the almost-sacred Battlefield formula. One team defends while the other tries to break open a series of crates in sequence.
Because combat always centers around pairs of crates, the game is more fun for hardcore twitch gamers and worse for players who enjoy support roles (like medic) or exploiting poorly protected enemy positions in past Battlefield games. The classes and vehicles are still there, but the high-level strategy is mostly gone. And the feel is completely different. In urban combat, knives rule. Over long distances, snipers control the high ground. Opportunities for ordinary rifles and machine guns are slimmer than you might expect.
Voice chat was overwhelmed with people screaming that they died without knowing why, usually several times in a row. Because you can only spawn on your squadmates (usually under fire) or at your base, you can get stuck with the choice between spawning with your throat on someone’s knife or under a hail of artillery shells and helicopter rockets. And it can be a while before you get to play. In past Battlefield games, you could always move to fight somewhere else under those circumstances.
Then there’s the controversial weapon unlocks. You can only get certain weapons if you bought the “gold edition” or make it to the very top rank. Others are available for things like pre-orders. Worse yet, you have to level up just to get the basic equipment necessary to play a class. Get past these issues, and there’s some great action, cool equipment and intense games. Battles are furious and wild, gunfire is constant and there’s almost never a break in the action, even when changing maps.
If all of Bad Company’s single-player game were like the final mission, and if the multiplayer game included a conquest style of play, Bad Company would be amazing. As it is, it’s merely good enough to tide you over until the multiplayer regains the legendary Conquest modes or the knife gets relegated to the kitchen again.
Don’t bring a gun to a knife fight. The battlefield is filled with gold-crazed AWOL U.S. Army soldiers and merciless mercenaries, all madly swinging knives at each other over crates of gold. Throw in a few snipers, heavy artillery and the occasional helicopter, and you have Battlefield: Bad Company. That’s how I learned not to bring a gun to a knife fight. Not even a heavy machine gun. Now I’m dripping with the dog tags of my enemies.
Because combat always centers around pairs of crates, the game is more fun for hardcore twitch gamers and worse for players who enjoy support roles (like medic) or exploiting poorly protected enemy positions in past Battlefield games. The classes and vehicles are still there, but the high-level strategy is mostly gone. And the feel is completely different. In urban combat, knives rule. Over long distances, snipers control the high ground. Opportunities for ordinary rifles and machine guns are slimmer than you might expect.
Then there’s the controversial weapon unlocks. You can only get certain weapons if you bought the “gold edition” or make it to the very top rank. Others are available for things like pre-orders. Worse yet, you have to level up just to get the basic equipment necessary to play a class. Get past these issues, and there’s some great action, cool equipment and intense games. Battles are furious and wild, gunfire is constant and there’s almost never a break in the action, even when changing maps.
