Battlefield: Bad Company Review (360)

Hostility amongst the allies

Let’s not beat around the bush here, war is bad. No one wants to hear about it, it causes ridiculous amounts of pain and misery, and seems inherently pointless, much like a lovers tiff over the decision to re-introduce blue Smarties. If ever thrown into the line of fire, however, you have to make the best with what you’ve got, and your own allies are your closest call of comfort for your teetering morale. End up with a bunch of misfits, dunderheads and blabbermouths however and some may say that you drew the short straw. Pick up a copy of Battlefield: Bad Company and the short straw draweth.

In this more single-player driven addition to the Battlefield series you land in the boots of Preston, a helicopter hijacker whose punishments for his actions land him in Bad Company, a division in the army which the government mainly see as a bunch of lively crash test dummies whose only service is to enter a battle scenario to waste the ammo of the enemy. The closest thing to friends Preston hands are his group of military misfits, a masochistic control freak leader, a nerdy hacker in love with the voice of his Intel officer and a Redneck. After several attempts to actually make their country proud of them, the group get side-tracked by a rather tempting pile of gold making it cross-country, and soon the bid for honour takes a back seat in favour of fortune for the anti-heroes, underlining one of the games moral messages. BRING BACK BORSTAL.

On paper, it’s an edgier plot than the standard warfare…fare…and is constantly interspersed with spurs of dark humour. Unfortunately, humour in games has a certain way of backfiring, and the jokes are about as hit and miss as the untrained soldiers line of fire (and that joke). Still, the whole thing was running smoothly in comparison to the introduction of a presidential character who combined the sleek appearance of of Ricky Gervais and Charlie Chaplin, delivering his lines in the suave manner of Paul ‘O’Grady. It’s at this point where the whole plot fell through, and with the whole cast constantly trying to better each other with one liners in every cut-scene, you soon blank it all out in favour of the gameplay.

Despite only consisting of seven levels, the player has to bare in mind that each environment can practically rival the size of your average sandbox game. Objectives are spread out over huge terrains, each one consisting of practically nothing but sniping, slaying and blowing up the houses of helpless innocents. Unfortunately the environments prove to be so big, that when you finally manage to reach an area of conflict you can’t help but feel a cylindrical grey shape should appear at the bottom of the screen stating ‘500G-Duke Of Edinburgh Award’.

When you finally manage to cross 50 miles of treacherous flat ground, combat usually initiates around an objective and the game comes into its own. The layout of battlefields lead to frantic and tense turf wars which is only ever hindered by some A.I. incompetence, forcing you to believe that the enemy follow the same ‘cannon fodder’ policy as you, yet actually enjoy it.

Those who wish to make widespread chaos across the land and feel that shooting dumb soldiers point blank in the head isn’t enough can rejoice in the fact they can demolish buildings as well. Although structures won’t teeter and collapse upon enemies, the ability to blow up walls and expose opponents does sneakily slip in tactical elements in gunfights.

When you look over and deal with all the faults, you ultimately get to the good parts.

Unfortunately, these lovely features in combat are sewn together with an incredibly tenuous fibre known as ‘Difficulty’. No matter what difficulty is chosen, Preston always has an infinite amount of health packs on him. No matter what difficulty is chosen, Preston always has an infinite amount of explosives by his side. No matter what difficulty is chosen, Preston holds the unique power of ‘re-spawning’. The bullets may be tougher and the ammo supplies dwindling when it comes to hard mode, but Preston can walk in all guns blazing, get mowed down, and simply re-spawn 5 seconds away from battle fresh as a daisy. It appears that in trying to endorse the single player campaign, the Battlefield series has dragged in some multi-player aspects into proceedings by giving the player no punishment for death. Preston can slowly pick off targets whilst going through hell and back frequently and still come out of battle victorious, a likely happening seeing as your team is completely useless when it comes to aiding you.

Despite all these flaws, they’re only niggling and don’t manage to completely screw up the game. The pains in the backside soon become minor setbacks which delay some truly awesome set pieces. It’s like that back door with a faulty lock that has to be kicked a particular way in order to open. An incontinent pet whose signals you have to learn in order to avoid a mess. When you look over and deal with all the faults, you ultimately get to the good parts.

Battlefield: Bad Company doesn’t quite earn a place on the radar of most gamers, mainly due to its unrewarding and sometimes patronising difficulty. However, the quick blasts of adrenaline produced from close quarter gunfights and vehicle segments do allow for it to be an excellent rental title. It’ll never quite be Call Of Duty, but it’ll release your inner masochist during your whole time with it.