Battlefield: Bad Company

DICE’s Battlefield franchise has long been a staple for fans of online PC shooters, giving players large scale online battles in huge environments. The series has primarily been a multiplayer focused experience as well as a PC one, but with DICE’s latest entry they have decided to pull a 180 and build the game with next-gen consoles in mind and with a story-driven single-player mode. However, while much of the focus falls on the single-player element, there is still a pretty robust multiplayer element. Battlefield: Bad Company is a solid shooter that doesn’t compromise the series’ multiplayer roots, while still offering up a fun and compelling single-player element.
Bad Company follows the titular group of soldiers as they go AWOL behind enemy lines in order to find a cache of gold. The story is an overt homage to films like Kelly’s Heroes and Three Kings, but is done in a more humorous sense. The game approaches its war backdrop in tongue-and-cheek fashion, with the banter between the main characters keeping pretty lighthearted throughout.

The single-player campaign is pretty meaty and isn’t short on action in the slightest. The game does a fine job of transposing the intense high-volume firefights that the franchise’s bread and butter. You'll have a variety of weapons at your disposal, as well as myriad vehicles that you and your unit can commandeer. Each mission usually takes a pretty long time to complete, but the action manages to stay pretty heavy throughout.
One of the coolest elements in Bad Company comes courtesy of the new Frostbite Engine; the destructible environments. Nearly everything in the game can be completely decimated, meaning that houses or other buildings won’t make good cover for very long. This mechanic affects the gameplay quite a bit, as you’ll have to rethink running into a building to get cover, as enemies will be able to blow right through it.

While the game is made with a single-player focus in mind, there is still a lot here for fans of the online Battlefield games. The game supports 24 players per map, essentially playing out in an “attackers vs. defenders” game. One side will have to defend a couple of crates of gold while the other has to destroy the opposing team’s crate. There are also eight maps to play on, that are pretty varied in terms of environments. The game also ran pretty solidly online, with very little lag issues. One unfortunate missing element is a co-op mode, which would be very appropriate for the game, but is sadly missing from this entry.
The graphics are pretty good in Battlefield: Bad Company. The character models and environments look pretty solid, but the destruction engine really takes the cake. Being able to nearly decimate almost every object in the environment adds a great element to the game, and is carried through in a very impressive way. The action also unfolds quite smoothly, with the framerates staying pretty solid, even when the action gets heavy.

Soundwise, the game is very impressive, sporting some fantastic sound effects and great music. While the voice acting is a bit over-the-top and the dialogue is quite cheesy, the sound department is very polished and ranks among the best on the Xbox 360.
Battlefield: Bad Company is a solid shooter that is a blast to play. The single-player mode is very fleshed out, and the light-hearted atmosphere works well, while the multiplayer elements are still a lot of fun. While the lack of a co-op mode is a bummer, there’s still a lot here for fans of the FPS genre.