Battlefield: Bad Company (Xbox 360)
Every now and then you find a military shooter that tries to add some personality to the soldiers you fight alongside and often to little success. Part of it seems to be because of the motivation behind it, these characters less than memorable because they are constructed more as a potential source of drama as the player is meant to fear the possibility of their death. Battlefield: Bad Company takes a different and surprisingly successful approach to making you care for its cast though, because rather than aiming for your heartstrings, it takes aim at your funny bone with a first-person shooter written almost like a comedy.
The player finds themselves in the role of Preston Marlowe after an unrevealed infraction leads to him being transferred to the U.S. military’s 222nd Army Battalion, specifically to the group of troublemakers known as B Company. Nicknamed “Bad Company” due to its members essentially being the types who barely function properly as soldiers, you quickly meet two strong examples of that with Haggard and Sweetwater. An excitable redneck who seemingly joined the army just for the chance to handle explosives, Haggard is definitely the most amusing of the bunch as he freely speaks his mind even when what he’s saying shows he isn’t the brightest. Sweetwater is much smarter but a wisecracker and often wary of any danger the group finds themselves in, but he does brighten up his tune when he hears “Miss July” on the comms, the woman who gives the team orders keeping things pretty professional despite Sweetwater’s childish crush motivated purely by her voice. Keeping this ragtag squad in line though is Sergeant Redford, “Sarge” more of a traditional no-nonsense type as he has to be to keep the two goofballs under his command in line and actually following orders. Still, he shows he’s not totally clean cut himself, his dreams of an upcoming retirement meaning he’s more willing to mess around and take risks than a by-the-book officer.
Bad Company squabbles and makes fun of each other frequently across the campaign but they do feel like a close-knit crew that merely enjoys teasing each other. Preston is a bit of an outsider though, partly because he doesn’t talk much outside of doing some narration over story scenes, but he actually fits into the group quite well. While you as the player will be taking charge and doing important mission objectives most of the time, it actually ends up justified pretty well, the others not so much believing you to be capable enough to take point as they are unwilling to risk their hides or feeling the rookie should be the one taking the risk. Almost any time the crew pipes up between action segments you will likely want to come to a stop to see their subject of discussion, and even when important plot elements need to be discussed between Sarge and Miss July, you still have amusing background details like Sweetwater and Haggard playing Rock-Paper-Scissors since they too quickly get bored during official business. To make this small squad even more likely to endear themselves to you, they’re all actually fairly capable in combat and won’t get in your way either. You don’t need to worry about them getting injured since they’ll shrug off injuries they sustain and they do contribute meaningfully to firefights. Not only can they pick off small targets, sometimes you might see a rocket fly from Haggard that can blast out an enemy encampment or vehicle, their strength not so high that they’ll overshadow your efforts but you definitely feel their presence and will come to appreciate it as well.
Bad Company finds themselves fighting in a war between the United States and Russia that even the characters don’t seem to really understand the reasoning behind, but it’s not all too important since it’s mostly a set up for the team’s true objective. After a few fights the group learns the Russians are hiring mercenaries known as the Legionnaires who are paid by the organization’s higher-ups in solid gold bars. Greed quickly overcomes the group as they gradually find more and more Legionnaires, eventually deciding to change focus from fighting the war to hunting down the mercenary group so they can snag enough to make them rich. This does mean they’re technically choosing to go AWOL to get a payday though, and as they leave Russian borders and enter the fictional country of Serdaristan, things only get more complicated as they try to avoid being court martialled by the army, deal with the eccentric dictator of the Serdaristan, and hope against hope that the pursuit of gold won’t be a wild goose chase. These events give some good reason to shakeup the kind of objectives you undertake too, the game beginning with tasks like clearing out enemy artillery or a small village and then shifting to objectives like taking out radio communications specifically so the U.S. Army doesn’t track you and even crossing the dictator’s massive golf course as his forces roll out across it in tanks and jeeps to try and stop you. Keeping the tone light and comedic with character motivations simple makes it a fun romp, almost feeling closer to an 80s action movie despite it presenting itself as taking place in the present day.
In this first-person shooter the first thing you’ll want to consider is how your health is handled, the player given 100 health points per life. In the campaign you have an injector you can whip out for a full instant recovery, but the injector needs time to recharge between uses and there will definitely be times you can’t use it fast enough if you’re too far out in the open. The injector’s use is more limited in the online multiplayer, only a specific character class getting it and the recovery gradual, but one odd element of the single-player action is your death is handled a bit like how it is in multiplayer. Like most first-person shooters, after dying in the competitive online modes, you’ll wait a bit and then respawn, able to reenter the battle right where it left off. This is true of most situations in the campaign as well, meaning you won’t have to kill the same enemy soldiers again and again nor will you have to complete the same objectives repeatedly. A few exceptions exist, but for the most part it seems Battlefield: Bad Company doesn’t wish to obstruct you from clearing the campaign, although thankfully that doesn’t totally diminish the difficulty. Instead, it makes it easier to accept that a tank just blasted you to bits or you didn’t see a grenade in time to flee and as a result the game will sometimes pour quite a lot of soldiers in an area or give enemies advantageous positions since you don’t necessarily need to survive each encounter to succeed.
The weapon set manages to set apart even similar looking tools, usually through things like having significant recoil or a fairly lengthy reload time for the different automatic weapons. Multiplayer is definitely where these differences are the most important since starting off a new life gives you the chance to select a character class that influences which weapons you can wield. Assault feels like a generically effective option if you don’t want to find yourself coming up short anywhere, the class packing an assault rifle with a grenade attachment and they’re even the class that gets the auto-injector, although the multiplayer features a system where you unlock new secondaries and alternate weapons by playing online and performing well. You will definitely get some edge for unlocking new gear, but it’s not a huge advantage, especially since the battlefields online will feature players of many classes and plenty of vehicles like tanks, jeeps, boats, and helicopters to shake up the formula. Demolition class unsurprisingly gets more explosives at the price of having the more situational shotgun as their standard firearm, and no matter the shape of the level you can bet that vehicles will play an important role. Buildings and structures in Battlefield: Bad Company are destructible to a considerable degree, a player in a tank able to blast down barriers or even drive through building walls and thus having foot soldiers who can reliably take down vehicles helps manage their impressive power. The damage can go even further than just collapsing buildings though, players able to blow out bridges to shake up the enemy’s approach options, although there are also attack helicopters that can dish out death from above that are a bit harder for ground forces to handle.
Recon class serves as the sniper with a pretty powerful long range rifle but also the option to call in a guided missile drop so they can handle vehicles as well provided they’re safe in cover while setting up for it. Specialist, funnily enough, feels a bit broad, packing an assault rifle and C4 charges they can detonate, but Support feels like the truly specialized role as they pack one of the slow reloading but strong automatics so they’re not flimsy but they can toss medical kits around to heal teammates and can both repair or sabotage vehicles. Rather than feeling like there’s a strong balance between the classes they mostly feel like they cater to different player types, thus ensuring the battlefield will not stagnate as people swap roles and bring new tools to the fight. The main multiplayer mode and the only one on offer without the free downloadable content is called Gold Rush and seems to also thrive on some deliberate unevenness. The defending team in Gold Rush has two crates of gold at a time they need to defend, the crates taking a lot of damage to destroy but if a soldier can get in and set a charge that takes time to detonate, a crate can be wiped out in an instant. Gold crates are often placed in fairly smart locations where the attackers will have to work to get to them but can sometimes find ways to make it easier such as blowing apart the building a crate is in so they can fire at it from afar.
Teams can consist of up to twelve players and vehicles reappear quickly so they’re consistently part of the fight, but the map layouts usually do a good job of making the gold caches feel possible to successfully destroy even though they’re often fairly close to the enemy’s spawn. This is in part because after a death, you can either come back to life at your base or beside a soldier out in the field, meaning a single player who gets in deep can suddenly receive the kind of backup necessary for a proper assault. This also incentivizes being wary about your own life, the defenders able to play a little more loose because there are less stakes for death while the attackers will lose if they run out of respawns for the team. After the first pair of gold crates are destroyed the map will move onto a second pair in a new area of the level, battles able to be a decent length regardless of how well teams are performing and certain things like helicopter availability are usually given to the team that would have a rougher time in that region of the map such as the starting point of Harvest Day’s farm that requires crossing large open territory to approach the defender’s base. The earlier mentioned free downloadable content adds in a mode called Conquest where both teams utilize the limited respawn system, teams competing to hold control points that will automatically deplete the enemy team’s “respawn tickets” should you hold enough of them. Like the Gold Rush crates their spots feel smart for giving both teams some advantages but still allow for the shifting of control often enough, although it is a shame some areas like the golf course from the story only make a multiplayer appearance in Conquest.
THE VERDICT: While Battlefield: Bad Company impresses with its multiplayer’s strong offerings in terms of vehicles and weapon sets, the real star of the show is certainly the campaign where you’ll be laughing along with the lovable losers that make up B Company. The well-written humor and clear character personalities make you actually want to stop and listen to the chatter between your teammates and they are helpful in the game’s forgiving but still engaging story mode. The action is definitely handled well in both modes though, the health and spawning systems tuned smartly for balancing risk but consistent forward progress and your options in a fight usually feel broad enough you can find what suits you rather than just following orders.
And so, I give Battlefield: Bad Company for Xbox 360…
A GREAT rating. Gold Rush is a great concept for competitive multiplayer battles that doesn’t stray too far from the Battlefield series’s tried and true Conquest, the spawning system doing a lot for making the attackers’ work feel possible as back-up is always possible but just squashing the defenders with numbers won’t be easy since you’re pressing into their home turf where their vehicles and other attack options are readily available. There are clear situations where you might want to try your hand at a sniper rifle but that doesn’t mean the simple reliability of the Assault class is going to come up short since they have a role to play in the broader battle, and even the helicopters can’t quite dominate despite their clear edge simply because they can’t afford to cleanly line up shots for fear of being a sitting goose. The progression system for playing multiple matches makes more time playing across a good spread of maps with clearly different flows worthwhile and the free DLC only adds more options for how to play without feeling like too big a leap in format. As mentioned though, the campaign is the big star, the small cast of characters in Battlefield: Bad Company managed well so that you can grow fond of them because of their role in the broader comedy. The game isn’t a full-on farce, you are still fighting a war at times, but it doesn’t try to drum up drama or focus in on anything grim as the game’s Teen rating might have already clued you in on. Instead, you’re given the solid and diverse military action to hold up the gameplay side before your hear the latest buffoonery from Haggard or hear Sweetwater irritate Sarge again with his latest complaint. The campaign is a good size but still a bit short, it feeling like there could have been more room for fun times with B Company, and a lack of subtitles can sometimes mean a good quip can disappear in the sounds of conflict.
Battlefield: Bad Company can be cheesy when it’s looking to have fun but still delivers an impressive war shooter through it’s multiplayer mode’s wide range of options and well-handled environmental damage systems. Sometimes in a military-based first-person shooter, as soon as you finish playing the game, you can forget the soldiers you fought alongside, but the screw-ups of B Company will likely linger with you for quite a while because of their fun dynamic while you can keep finding a reason to come back to the game thanks to its excellent online combat. Unfortunately that component is going offline permanently in December of 2023, but Battlefield: Bad Company manages to ensure it won’t fully be relegated to a relic of the past thanks to Haggard, Sweetwater, and Sarge taking you on a wild ride in the campaign’s comedic quest for gold.