(Note that this is my very first review, I'm just doing this for fun, so go easy on me. I did this a couple of years ago on another site, and decided to put it up here)
When I first tried out the demo for BF:BC, I was completely sucked in. The sound combined with that kind of destruction and the beautifully made enironments is just terrific. But when I actually bought the complete game, it was better than I could imagine.
The story of the game is very special and exciting in it's own away, even though I was surprised that it ended so quickly. But if you plan on playing on hard, you're still going to have to spend a lot of time to get that pot of gold.
(EDIT
The story; you play Preston Marlowe, a soldier sent to Bad Company, a group of soldiers that serve as "cannon fodder" cause they did something that upset the officers, like listening to Slipknot at night and keep everyone awake. Preston teams up with super-nerd Sweetwater, "hillbilly deluxe" Haggard and your sergeant Redford. You kill some evil dudes from the country Sedardistan, with it's well-known capital city "Doesn't-exist-Ville". However, you discover that the enemies are hired goons and are payed in crates of gold (why they couldn't take checks seem a bit unlogical). What happens next you can probably figure out for yourselves. As weird as it sounds, the story is actually well-done. Not perfect, but it's interesting and funny enough to keep you entertained.
The vehicles for the game are really made as they should be, with a few downsides. They really pack lots of power and speed, but still don't make it to easy to get away without blowing yourself up. They can be a little clumsy at times, but I didn't care when I could cut down entire forests with the power of my tank.
The soundtrack is beautiful, with war music in gameplay from the older Battlefield games, and cutscenes having a few jazz tracks.
When you find yourself with some of the coolest weapons, like a mortar strike, a SVV sniper rifle, or a SCAR assault rifle, you're really going to enjoy killing enemies hiding behind a fence or in a tank. Although some weapons seem a bit overpowered, with, for example the most useful one, the MRTR-5, a remote control sending in airstrikes wherever you aim it, a high destruction weapon with unlimited ammo and short waiting time. But with high destruction, comes the destructive environments. Yes, Dice put emphasis on you being able to blow entire cities and forests to pieces if you want to, mostly with the aforementioned MRTR-5.
When it comes to the actual gameplay, it's what you normally will see in the average FPS's for the 360, like Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3. It's really fun the first time, with very much variation and fun scenery, but play it a second time and it might get a bit repetitive, with enemies doing the same patterns as before, and already being utterly stupid. But altogether, the campaign is great fun, and you will probably enjoy it much. Although it's a sad fact that there is no co-op play, which would turn the game into even more crazy, explosive fun
But to a good FPS, is also a good multi-player neccessary, and does BF:BC deliver that? The answer: Yes. Take all those weapons, all the beautiful scenery, mash in soldiers with ugly names floating over their heads, throw in some extra fun, and you have it. The multi-player is fun, and playable for first-timers. Many games, like COD 4 and Unreal Tournament, make it hard for first-timers, to play, with most other players having played all their life, this game makes it possible for other than pro gamers to have fun. But then there's unlockable weapons, that can be unlocked simply by going up in rank, which kind of makes it more hard when there always will be someone carrying the good guns. But most things you'll actually die of most, is the headshot from a sniper, and the classical back-stab.
It's the classical classes you'll find in many games, like recon (sniper), support (guy with machine gun puking out health packs), and demolition (guy with big, compensating RPG) You'll have fun with the team based game Gold Rush, with the priority of blowing up the enemies gold crates. But this get's somehow boring with the fact that it's the ONLY multiplayer game. I know Dice aimed at the campaign with a sniper rifle, and only looking occasionally away to the multi-player, who was waving for attention, but at least throw in a simple death-match game or something. Then it would almost be perfect. But if you can look aside that fact, and focus on the positive sides, like how beautiful it is when another player is forced to hurl himself out of his helicopter, only to meet his doom at the "Asphalt of Pain and Disgrace", you will still enjoy the multi-player for what it is.
The downsides with this game is that the story is a little short. The story itself is great, I only hoped for some more from it. Throw in some more missions, or at least a bonus mission, or maye follow up on my hopes of split-screen co-op. The game is hard on highest, but i think they could have inserted an even harder level, just to challenge the real pros. Also, when you're fighting off giant hordes of enemies, you're pretty alone about it since your squad barely does anything to kill them. If you put a squad mate in front of an angry Russian reloading an RPG, he's not going to do much about it, you're just going to have to shoot for him. Although one good thing is that they're not as easily killed as other friendlies in games, like in Rainbow Six Vegas 2, so you won't have to restart checkpoints when they die (now only when YOU die). The only squad mate of real use is Haggard, all thanks to his rocket launcher (although the guarantee that the stupid hillbilly can aim is questionable). Can really save your ass when you don't know how to get rid of a tank. But you will still enjoy the company and the funny and interesting dialogues.
One interesting thing, not bad nor good, but seems to make the game a little bit complex, is the weird checkpoint vs. respawn thing. I went for a stroll with my beautifully destructive tank, and then noticed half a second later that it was on fire and I was dead thanks to a vicious bazooka. I respawned, but without a tank. I came back to last checkpoint, and instead took a car. Then I noticed that my tank was there, and still on fire. You respawn instead of reloading checkpoints, which seems like a step backwards from the journey to realism. Instead, I had to take a new vehicle every time I died, until I had to walk the entire mile.
If you enjoyed games such as COD4 and the other Battlefield games, you're really going to enjoy blowing up houses and ambushing you're enemies in this hilarious and bright game. It's not perfect, but still great and unique. So if you haven't bought it yet, I recommend that you do, cause it's a game separating from the masses, which deserves a medal in my book.
When I first tried out the demo for BF:BC, I was completely sucked in. The sound combined with that kind of destruction and the beautifully made enironments is just terrific. But when I actually bought the complete game, it was better than I could imagine.
The story of the game is very special and exciting in it's own away, even though I was surprised that it ended so quickly. But if you plan on playing on hard, you're still going to have to spend a lot of time to get that pot of gold.
(EDIT
The story; you play Preston Marlowe, a soldier sent to Bad Company, a group of soldiers that serve as "cannon fodder" cause they did something that upset the officers, like listening to Slipknot at night and keep everyone awake. Preston teams up with super-nerd Sweetwater, "hillbilly deluxe" Haggard and your sergeant Redford. You kill some evil dudes from the country Sedardistan, with it's well-known capital city "Doesn't-exist-Ville". However, you discover that the enemies are hired goons and are payed in crates of gold (why they couldn't take checks seem a bit unlogical). What happens next you can probably figure out for yourselves. As weird as it sounds, the story is actually well-done. Not perfect, but it's interesting and funny enough to keep you entertained. The vehicles for the game are really made as they should be, with a few downsides. They really pack lots of power and speed, but still don't make it to easy to get away without blowing yourself up. They can be a little clumsy at times, but I didn't care when I could cut down entire forests with the power of my tank.
The soundtrack is beautiful, with war music in gameplay from the older Battlefield games, and cutscenes having a few jazz tracks.
When you find yourself with some of the coolest weapons, like a mortar strike, a SVV sniper rifle, or a SCAR assault rifle, you're really going to enjoy killing enemies hiding behind a fence or in a tank. Although some weapons seem a bit overpowered, with, for example the most useful one, the MRTR-5, a remote control sending in airstrikes wherever you aim it, a high destruction weapon with unlimited ammo and short waiting time. But with high destruction, comes the destructive environments. Yes, Dice put emphasis on you being able to blow entire cities and forests to pieces if you want to, mostly with the aforementioned MRTR-5.
When it comes to the actual gameplay, it's what you normally will see in the average FPS's for the 360, like Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3. It's really fun the first time, with very much variation and fun scenery, but play it a second time and it might get a bit repetitive, with enemies doing the same patterns as before, and already being utterly stupid. But altogether, the campaign is great fun, and you will probably enjoy it much. Although it's a sad fact that there is no co-op play, which would turn the game into even more crazy, explosive fun
But to a good FPS, is also a good multi-player neccessary, and does BF:BC deliver that? The answer: Yes. Take all those weapons, all the beautiful scenery, mash in soldiers with ugly names floating over their heads, throw in some extra fun, and you have it. The multi-player is fun, and playable for first-timers. Many games, like COD 4 and Unreal Tournament, make it hard for first-timers, to play, with most other players having played all their life, this game makes it possible for other than pro gamers to have fun. But then there's unlockable weapons, that can be unlocked simply by going up in rank, which kind of makes it more hard when there always will be someone carrying the good guns. But most things you'll actually die of most, is the headshot from a sniper, and the classical back-stab.
It's the classical classes you'll find in many games, like recon (sniper), support (guy with machine gun puking out health packs), and demolition (guy with big, compensating RPG) You'll have fun with the team based game Gold Rush, with the priority of blowing up the enemies gold crates. But this get's somehow boring with the fact that it's the ONLY multiplayer game. I know Dice aimed at the campaign with a sniper rifle, and only looking occasionally away to the multi-player, who was waving for attention, but at least throw in a simple death-match game or something. Then it would almost be perfect. But if you can look aside that fact, and focus on the positive sides, like how beautiful it is when another player is forced to hurl himself out of his helicopter, only to meet his doom at the "Asphalt of Pain and Disgrace", you will still enjoy the multi-player for what it is.
The downsides with this game is that the story is a little short. The story itself is great, I only hoped for some more from it. Throw in some more missions, or at least a bonus mission, or maye follow up on my hopes of split-screen co-op. The game is hard on highest, but i think they could have inserted an even harder level, just to challenge the real pros. Also, when you're fighting off giant hordes of enemies, you're pretty alone about it since your squad barely does anything to kill them. If you put a squad mate in front of an angry Russian reloading an RPG, he's not going to do much about it, you're just going to have to shoot for him. Although one good thing is that they're not as easily killed as other friendlies in games, like in Rainbow Six Vegas 2, so you won't have to restart checkpoints when they die (now only when YOU die). The only squad mate of real use is Haggard, all thanks to his rocket launcher (although the guarantee that the stupid hillbilly can aim is questionable). Can really save your ass when you don't know how to get rid of a tank. But you will still enjoy the company and the funny and interesting dialogues.
One interesting thing, not bad nor good, but seems to make the game a little bit complex, is the weird checkpoint vs. respawn thing. I went for a stroll with my beautifully destructive tank, and then noticed half a second later that it was on fire and I was dead thanks to a vicious bazooka. I respawned, but without a tank. I came back to last checkpoint, and instead took a car. Then I noticed that my tank was there, and still on fire. You respawn instead of reloading checkpoints, which seems like a step backwards from the journey to realism. Instead, I had to take a new vehicle every time I died, until I had to walk the entire mile.
If you enjoyed games such as COD4 and the other Battlefield games, you're really going to enjoy blowing up houses and ambushing you're enemies in this hilarious and bright game. It's not perfect, but still great and unique. So if you haven't bought it yet, I recommend that you do, cause it's a game separating from the masses, which deserves a medal in my book.
