Notes: Game reviews are back (finally)! It's been a while since I did a solid 1500-worder too, so that's good, I guess. Comments and criticisms appreciated, as always.
Battlefield is Swedish developer Digital Illusions CE's forefront first-person shooter franchise kicked off in 2002 with the release of Battlefield 1942. Primarily focused on the multiplayer side of gaming, Battlefield has provided quasi-realistic portrayals of combat in the settings of the Second World War, the Vietnam War, the near future and even the next ice age. DICE's latest offerings are technically 1942-throwback Battlefield 1943 and the cartoon-like Battlefield Heroes, but I'm hideously late to the party as always so lets have a look at their first single-player footed release, Bad Company.
Not to be confused with Battlefield: Before Christ.
Battlefield: Bad Company is set in present day Eastern Europe and initially focuses on a conflict between Russia and the United States going on for reasons never clearly explained, or for that matter even mentioned. You play as Preston Marlowe who begins the game on a helicopter being transferred to the 222nd Army Battalion, also know as "Bad Company," where the army tosses all the bad eggs for use as cannon fodder. You're soon teamed up into a squad of four with Sweetwater, the most intelligent and talkative of the group, infatuated with the signal operator "Miss July," Haggard, a pyromaniac and the comic relief portion and Redford, the no-nonsense Sergeant looking forward to going fishing when he's sent back home.
Toward the end of the first mission the quadrumvirate come across mercenaries from the Legionaries, fabled to be paid in solid gold and do end up finding a gold bar on one of their lifeless bodies after "checking for a pulse," but are promptly ordered to get back to work. When they later spot more of the gold on mercenary trucks and Haggard takes the group AWOL in neutral and fictional Serdaristan, they decide drop their orders and move onto a cause they're much more interested in. On average the story is nothing groundbreaking, barring the fact that it's a shooter set in the modern day not preoccupied with terrorism, and the characters can be quite shallow (indeed, we only see the main antagonist for about a minute or so), but that's not to say it's all completely intolerable. There's an occasional laugh here and there, and vaguely reminiscent of the film Kelly's Heroes, but it's mainly there just to set the stage for the action that follows.
Bad Company's biggest strength gameplay-wise is that it, aptly, puts you on a battlefield with width and length, as opposed to a linear path like you'd find in games like Call of Duty or Half-Life. Maps are all reasonably big and give you a variety of options in completing mission objectives by letting you choose which side you want to assault from, if you want you keep your distance or go in guns blazing, if you want to soften the opposition up a little with a couple of grenades or tank shells, or even bypass certain installations altogether by going around the long way.
On each mission's map you'll find a wealth of vehicles to borrow, which can help in assaults and escapes, as well as just getting around. Sadly they aren't all that diverse; there are jeeps, armoured cars, light tanks, heavy tanks and trucks and the different designs within each class don't differ much. You'll soon notice that your squad isn't too eager to do the driving when you're in the gunners seat, turning them into not much more than portable turrets in some situations. This becomes a little better when inside a tank and you're allowed to drive and operate the cannon at the same time, and combined with the size of the maps there's a real opportunity for sandbox fun, clearing forests, levelling buildings and turning Serdaristanian farms into something resembling the surface of the moon. The aerial portion of combat works well enough, even if it does take a lot of getting used to the controls, but during the campaign there's only one mission where you're allowed to fly a helicopter which was a tad disappointing, and fixed wing aircraft seem to have been given the boot altogether.
You'll carry a maximum of four pieces of equipment at any one time, only two of which you have any real control over. The first will be a gun of some description; an assault rifle, shotgun, small machine gun, sniper rifle or light machine gun depending on how you want to approach a situation and what you can get your hands on. Each of these has a compatriot grenade or pistol which isn't interchangeable with anything else, meaning you wouldn't be able to mix and match weapons together and carry, for example, an assault rifle and a shotgun, but this still works well enough providing you can keep yourself topped up with ammunition. Next is a gadget of some kind, like a rocket launcher, a radio for calling in artillery barrages, or a power drill capable of fixing friendly vehicles (and quizzically, destroying enemy ones) with just a few seconds of application. The final slot is permanently occupied by an infinite supply of The Best Drugs In The World, which when thrust vigorously into your chest will bring you back to 100% health.
I can stop any time I want to. I just don't want to.
DICE's new Frostbite engine allows for what seems at first to be a ludicrous amount of destruction. It's exaggerated and over the top, as you'll gather from the first oh-lord-that's-big hole you create in the side of building with a grenade launcher and thankfully it's not just for show. A couple of rockets or and artillery strike on a small farmhouse is a perfectly acceptable and enjoyable way to deal with that last holed up enemy, or all of them. Unfortunately not everything is destructible as houses and other structures will always leave at least a wooden frame as well as the floors, and there are a few indestructible concrete blocks and pillboxes laying around, presumably to counterbalance the number of explosive crates, barrels and fuel tanks that litter the countryside, however it's still a manically fun part of the game
The set up of the whole thing is fairly palatable, barring a handful of inconsistencies like being unable to properly aim down the sights of shotguns and small machine guns, or make yourself go prone. Sniping in particular is a very rewarding experience and the long draw distances give you a good opportunity to practice your skills, though that's not to say a systematic and stealthy approach is not always one that works. When enemies catch sight of you, you'll become the priority target of the day, whilst your squad does seemingly little to help you dispose of them. The effect of having so many foes focused so squarely on you is that you'll need to jam those syringes of The Best Drugs In The World into yourself so regularly it'd be easier to just go on an IV drip.
Even with that, dying is inevitable, and herein is Bad Company's biggest problem. Death takes you back to your last checkpoint which are often much too few in number and far away from each other, with any weapons or gadgets you may have picked up and allowed to start again. The strange thing about it is that any enemies you killed will still be dead and won't spawn back in, so death becomes more of an annoyance than a penalty. There's nothing stopping you from just running in, taking out as many as you can with careless tactics and then doing it all over again. That on it's own would be tolerable, if not a little silly, but then you notice vehicles won't respawn either, unless you were in one when you hit the last checkpoint. A stand out moment was when I found myself huffing it down a winding mountain road in the second to last mission on foot because I'd exhausted the supply of buggies, and would only manage to dispose of two or three enemies at a time before carking it and being warped back to the peak. It became especially gruelling when the helicopter showed up to rain down a couple of hundred rockets.
Going back to the positives, this outing of Battlefield looks spectacular. There are dense forests, ripe for destruction and the effects of explosives and bullets on the environment are fitting exaggerated, showering bits of rubble all over the immediate area. Of note are the smoke effects, particularly indoors, which are thick at first but then slowly diffuse in the air. There's even some lovely attention to detail like bipods on certain guns swinging as you turn, and it all runs at a smooth and steady framerate, so my only complaint would be some very occasional object pop-in.
Sound is also fairly well done. Voice work is reasonable (even if I do hate the Serdaristanian President's voice) and the sound effects are all great, from the rapid spewing of bullets to the satisfying tumbling of trees to the ground. When in or near vehicles you're likely to hear a variety of surf, jazz and country music making a nice contrast with the mad number of explosions that can be going on around you. Given that the chief enemies in the game are Russians, it's nice that they actually speak in Russian rather than shout obscenities in English with a bad accent, but I'm still not sold on their idiosyncratic death wails. I mean, one just sounds like a duck's quack mixed with a crying baby.
Well, yes, it is a walloping great hole in the wall, but think of how much you could save on your cooling bills in summer.
I'm far from hating Battlefield: Bad Company, but I can see a lot of things could have been improved. Despite the checkpoint system I did enjoy the game enough to see it through to the end and play a couple of missions over again, even if just to reap as much havoc as possible in a light tank. If destruction is your cup of tea then I'm sure you'll have a whale of a time with it, but if the multiplayer isn't a big priority for you that time will probably only work out to a weekend or so. Rent It.
Battlefield is Swedish developer Digital Illusions CE's forefront first-person shooter franchise kicked off in 2002 with the release of Battlefield 1942. Primarily focused on the multiplayer side of gaming, Battlefield has provided quasi-realistic portrayals of combat in the settings of the Second World War, the Vietnam War, the near future and even the next ice age. DICE's latest offerings are technically 1942-throwback Battlefield 1943 and the cartoon-like Battlefield Heroes, but I'm hideously late to the party as always so lets have a look at their first single-player footed release, Bad Company.
Not to be confused with Battlefield: Before Christ.
Battlefield: Bad Company is set in present day Eastern Europe and initially focuses on a conflict between Russia and the United States going on for reasons never clearly explained, or for that matter even mentioned. You play as Preston Marlowe who begins the game on a helicopter being transferred to the 222nd Army Battalion, also know as "Bad Company," where the army tosses all the bad eggs for use as cannon fodder. You're soon teamed up into a squad of four with Sweetwater, the most intelligent and talkative of the group, infatuated with the signal operator "Miss July," Haggard, a pyromaniac and the comic relief portion and Redford, the no-nonsense Sergeant looking forward to going fishing when he's sent back home.
Toward the end of the first mission the quadrumvirate come across mercenaries from the Legionaries, fabled to be paid in solid gold and do end up finding a gold bar on one of their lifeless bodies after "checking for a pulse," but are promptly ordered to get back to work. When they later spot more of the gold on mercenary trucks and Haggard takes the group AWOL in neutral and fictional Serdaristan, they decide drop their orders and move onto a cause they're much more interested in. On average the story is nothing groundbreaking, barring the fact that it's a shooter set in the modern day not preoccupied with terrorism, and the characters can be quite shallow (indeed, we only see the main antagonist for about a minute or so), but that's not to say it's all completely intolerable. There's an occasional laugh here and there, and vaguely reminiscent of the film Kelly's Heroes, but it's mainly there just to set the stage for the action that follows.
Bad Company's biggest strength gameplay-wise is that it, aptly, puts you on a battlefield with width and length, as opposed to a linear path like you'd find in games like Call of Duty or Half-Life. Maps are all reasonably big and give you a variety of options in completing mission objectives by letting you choose which side you want to assault from, if you want you keep your distance or go in guns blazing, if you want to soften the opposition up a little with a couple of grenades or tank shells, or even bypass certain installations altogether by going around the long way.
On each mission's map you'll find a wealth of vehicles to borrow, which can help in assaults and escapes, as well as just getting around. Sadly they aren't all that diverse; there are jeeps, armoured cars, light tanks, heavy tanks and trucks and the different designs within each class don't differ much. You'll soon notice that your squad isn't too eager to do the driving when you're in the gunners seat, turning them into not much more than portable turrets in some situations. This becomes a little better when inside a tank and you're allowed to drive and operate the cannon at the same time, and combined with the size of the maps there's a real opportunity for sandbox fun, clearing forests, levelling buildings and turning Serdaristanian farms into something resembling the surface of the moon. The aerial portion of combat works well enough, even if it does take a lot of getting used to the controls, but during the campaign there's only one mission where you're allowed to fly a helicopter which was a tad disappointing, and fixed wing aircraft seem to have been given the boot altogether.
You'll carry a maximum of four pieces of equipment at any one time, only two of which you have any real control over. The first will be a gun of some description; an assault rifle, shotgun, small machine gun, sniper rifle or light machine gun depending on how you want to approach a situation and what you can get your hands on. Each of these has a compatriot grenade or pistol which isn't interchangeable with anything else, meaning you wouldn't be able to mix and match weapons together and carry, for example, an assault rifle and a shotgun, but this still works well enough providing you can keep yourself topped up with ammunition. Next is a gadget of some kind, like a rocket launcher, a radio for calling in artillery barrages, or a power drill capable of fixing friendly vehicles (and quizzically, destroying enemy ones) with just a few seconds of application. The final slot is permanently occupied by an infinite supply of The Best Drugs In The World, which when thrust vigorously into your chest will bring you back to 100% health.
I can stop any time I want to. I just don't want to.
DICE's new Frostbite engine allows for what seems at first to be a ludicrous amount of destruction. It's exaggerated and over the top, as you'll gather from the first oh-lord-that's-big hole you create in the side of building with a grenade launcher and thankfully it's not just for show. A couple of rockets or and artillery strike on a small farmhouse is a perfectly acceptable and enjoyable way to deal with that last holed up enemy, or all of them. Unfortunately not everything is destructible as houses and other structures will always leave at least a wooden frame as well as the floors, and there are a few indestructible concrete blocks and pillboxes laying around, presumably to counterbalance the number of explosive crates, barrels and fuel tanks that litter the countryside, however it's still a manically fun part of the game
The set up of the whole thing is fairly palatable, barring a handful of inconsistencies like being unable to properly aim down the sights of shotguns and small machine guns, or make yourself go prone. Sniping in particular is a very rewarding experience and the long draw distances give you a good opportunity to practice your skills, though that's not to say a systematic and stealthy approach is not always one that works. When enemies catch sight of you, you'll become the priority target of the day, whilst your squad does seemingly little to help you dispose of them. The effect of having so many foes focused so squarely on you is that you'll need to jam those syringes of The Best Drugs In The World into yourself so regularly it'd be easier to just go on an IV drip.
Even with that, dying is inevitable, and herein is Bad Company's biggest problem. Death takes you back to your last checkpoint which are often much too few in number and far away from each other, with any weapons or gadgets you may have picked up and allowed to start again. The strange thing about it is that any enemies you killed will still be dead and won't spawn back in, so death becomes more of an annoyance than a penalty. There's nothing stopping you from just running in, taking out as many as you can with careless tactics and then doing it all over again. That on it's own would be tolerable, if not a little silly, but then you notice vehicles won't respawn either, unless you were in one when you hit the last checkpoint. A stand out moment was when I found myself huffing it down a winding mountain road in the second to last mission on foot because I'd exhausted the supply of buggies, and would only manage to dispose of two or three enemies at a time before carking it and being warped back to the peak. It became especially gruelling when the helicopter showed up to rain down a couple of hundred rockets.
Going back to the positives, this outing of Battlefield looks spectacular. There are dense forests, ripe for destruction and the effects of explosives and bullets on the environment are fitting exaggerated, showering bits of rubble all over the immediate area. Of note are the smoke effects, particularly indoors, which are thick at first but then slowly diffuse in the air. There's even some lovely attention to detail like bipods on certain guns swinging as you turn, and it all runs at a smooth and steady framerate, so my only complaint would be some very occasional object pop-in.
Sound is also fairly well done. Voice work is reasonable (even if I do hate the Serdaristanian President's voice) and the sound effects are all great, from the rapid spewing of bullets to the satisfying tumbling of trees to the ground. When in or near vehicles you're likely to hear a variety of surf, jazz and country music making a nice contrast with the mad number of explosions that can be going on around you. Given that the chief enemies in the game are Russians, it's nice that they actually speak in Russian rather than shout obscenities in English with a bad accent, but I'm still not sold on their idiosyncratic death wails. I mean, one just sounds like a duck's quack mixed with a crying baby.
Well, yes, it is a walloping great hole in the wall, but think of how much you could save on your cooling bills in summer.
I'm far from hating Battlefield: Bad Company, but I can see a lot of things could have been improved. Despite the checkpoint system I did enjoy the game enough to see it through to the end and play a couple of missions over again, even if just to reap as much havoc as possible in a light tank. If destruction is your cup of tea then I'm sure you'll have a whale of a time with it, but if the multiplayer isn't a big priority for you that time will probably only work out to a weekend or so. Rent It.
