It could be the Diet Coke next to the much meatier Call Of Duty series. The first thing you'll notice about Bad Company is that you don't really die, not in the traditional video game sense. This is because the game's checkpoint system is structured so that if you die, you respawn at the last checkpoint but lose none of your pregress, which means no baddies will respawn. Make sense? It will after about ten minutes of gameplay on the harder difficulties. And you'll soon decide that this checkpoint system is really for the best, because you won't last five seconds in open combat without taking a shot and needing to take cover and replenish your health with the adrenaline shot. Sent to Bad Company with three other dregs of the military, you play the role of ridiculously named Preston Marlowe, and you soon learn that your prerogative is not to save the world, but steal some gold. It riffs on movies like 'Kelly's Heroes' and 'Three Kings', and it's a nice and unique take on the somewhat tired war shooter genre (at least in the sense that nearly everything has been tried to date). The guns are good, but the aiming system is a little off. Cover is a necessity - there'll be no mad dashes to take a checkpoint: in fact you're much better off picking off the bad guys from a distance than charging in like a gung ho war junkie. This is where one of the game's more unique and fun weapons comes into play: the laser designator. Target it at an enemy tank and you'll rain down a barrage of missile fire on them. The first time I used this it left a huge grin on my face. It is fun. So fun, you'll keep doing it until you think it might be possible to break the game. Luckily EA DICE have made this ability available only in certain sections of the game, but when you're given free-reign with your own laser designator, you'll have yourself some fun. Which is just as well, because taking out a tank without one is next to impossible. Charging up to one to plant some explosives on it can sometimes be an exercise in futility. The other guys in your squad - a Squad Leader, a Technical and Communications Specialist, and an Explosives "Expert" - won't die in combat. They make wisecracks that usually fall flat. The baddies are caricatures. Surf-guitar music plays in tanks when you commandeer one. Game[play is challenging, but never intense. On the plus side, finding gold crates is a rush, and you never feel like your mission is unachievable. Backed up by a solid multiplayer mode called 'Gold Rush', Battlefield Bad Company doesn't lack polish, but it refuses to push the boundaries of the FPS genre, and it just feels a bit silly at times. That can be a good thing depending on your mood, however.
(jtbug doesn't review games unless he has finished them)
Other Helpful Reviews for Battlefield: Bad Company
Battlefield: Bad Company is the first Battlefield game I ever played. The past Battlefield games focused on multiplayer and since I'm primarily a single-player only the games didn't hold much interest. However a couple o... Read Full Review
I'll start by saying that this is a very good game and that only a few poor choice is stop it from having the best multiplayer on Xbox Live. The Battlefield series has allowed players to fight in World War 2, Vietnam, th... Read Full Review
