Developer - DICE
Publisher - Electronic Arts
Available On - XBOX 360, PS3
Reviewed On - XBOX 360

The Battlefield series has returned to home consoles stronger than ever. Not only does this next Battlefield installment provide a satisfying and expansive online community similar to it’s PC versions, but it also adds several nice engine upgrades, a big graphical overhaul and a short but fun single player campaign.

Any Battlefield veteran will first notice the technical advancements in Bad Company, DICE have custom built a whole new Frostbite engine for it’s first use here and it certainly shows. Everything is very smooth and polished as well as now supporting up to 90% destructible environments it certainly boosts up the demolition capabilities of a very destructive series of video games.

Up until now the Battlefield games had always been about the multiplayer and while the single player story in Bad Company is interesting and funny at times, multiplayer is still definitely the key focus of this title. Unfortunately the story is just far too short and easy to provide a compelling experience. Many elements of the multiplayer games have been carried across to the single player as well as a few new healing and regeneration concepts that just do not work in a single player FPS.

Level design throughout the campaign is very bland, large and widely open similar to the multiplayer maps. In fact grab a multiplayer map and designate a canal to go from point A to point B, and you’ve made a level for Battlefield Bad Company. While it’s all very linear “go here go there” as you’re clearly directed on the radar where to go, a few fun locales pop up incurring events such as cruising tanks through an open golf course.

The best part of the single player experience is definitely the level of personality that’s added to the Battlefield series. While the core story itself is a little uninspiring your enthusiastic teammates are continually chatty and make humorous comments throughout the entire game, even when just driving around in a tank. NPC’s are expressive, loud and responsive as well as full of mannerisms and expressions you could miss without paying attention. At one point I swear an enemy flipped me off whilst reloading behind a bunker. Incredibly rude I thought while I preceded to shower said bunker in an array of bullets, these additions whilst humorous are unfortunately one of the very few driving forces in completing the campaign. Also do not consider personality of NPC’s as an indication of AI as the intelligence of enemies is wavering at best. At most times enemy and team AI make a convincing effort of eradicating threat but that’s not without the odd and a bit too frequent case of intense retardation or not being able to see 3 feet in front of their face.

Battlefield Bad Company attempts to create a convincing single player experience and while it is filled with great technical attributes, the story is a tad bland. Very similar to the film Three Kings, it’s all over pretty quickly and the predictable story isn’t made more exciting by the repetitive progression. Go here, blow this up, go there, blow this up. The ending itself is so uneventful that they should have just set it up to join a multiplayer game straight away, with a transition smooth enough you wouldn’t even notice.

The worst part about single player is the extreme ease in health regeneration and spawning. There’s no red eye, and no health packs – this Bad Company are provided with a ’syringe’ of instant healing able to be used every 20 or 30 seconds. This allows quick and easy item juggling mid-battles to constantly refresh your health which ultimately ends very shallow and just plain easy. If you somehow manage to die, you merely respawn close by at the same time of death. Unless you have an active objective such as keeping a specific tank alive, you can just die over and over and over until your enemies get tired and go play golf.

While all the production with flashy videos and orchestral pieces are packed into the short campaign the multiplayer is ultimately where most time will be spent in Bad Company while a large following and community has already sprung up across the net in it’s continuation. Battles are played out online and while the initial launch only featured one competitive mode Gold Rush, the original team deathmatch style Conquest mode has recently been included. While more content is slowly being introduced to the multiplayer modes of Battlefield Bad Company it is certainly an enticing package.

The added destruction to the Battlefield environment is definitely the most noticable enhancement for the series. It truly adds wonders to a first person shooter especially when online, being able to locate your enemy by destroying their complete surroundings is always a joy. Not only are buildings and scenery destructible at players hands, but the terrain and nature such as trees is also a joy to wipe out with a tank or rocket when necessary. Couple this new technology with the fact that Battlefield Bad Company is the best looking Battlefield out there, and you’ve got a package that actually rivals the PC titles in ways which is truly an impressive feat.

While single player is an essentially enjoyable yet unsubstantial experience, being coupled with a 24 player wide scale online mode certainly beefs up the package of Battlefield Bad Company. Online has been smooth and very enjoyable thanks to the already established popularity of the game.

The varieties of classes and range of unlocks increase the versatility of progression in multiplayer alongside 25 ranks to ascend through and many achievement points for those on the 360. Like most modern online shooters these days, there are a lot of weapons and various things to unlock as you play but this does well in compensating where the single player falls a tad short.

There’s a lot of little additions to the Battlefield series to pick up on along the way offline or online, such as the camera button in multiplayer that instantly uploads a screenshot or the variety of new weapons and tools to use such as a homing missile strike. Coupled with the impressive visuals and large scale combat it is a very impressive feat for home consoles to create an experience akin to it’s modern PC brethren.

So while Battlefield Bad Company’s single player experience falls a little short when compared to other similar titles be sure it’s downfalls do not prevent it from being enjoyable. It is indeed an interesting romp especially if you’re familiar to Battlefield but this is less than half of what Bad Company has to offer as a total game. Both the multiplayer and online community of Battlefield Bad Company are of the most impressive I’ve seen on a home console so when you consider the single player as a neat little bonus alongside a multiplayer game you’ve got a damn convincing package in the form of Battlefield : Bad Company.

Battlefield: Bad Company

86%

The Good -

* Smooth and competent online service for up to 24 players.
* Deliciously destructible.
* New Battlefield additions to tempt PC gamers.

The Bad –

* Single player far too easy and short.
* Uninspiring story.
* Limited online content as it’s released.