After playing through Bad Company and spending a absurd amount of time on the multiplayer I’ve come to decide that this is not only my favourite Battlefield (of which in truth I never really have been much of a BF Fan) but has actually become my favourite console based FPS. A feat which I really was not expecting when I picked the game up, Truly EA DICE have gone in a new direction with their franchise, something I hope they keep in many games to come.
Taking a leap away from the traditional bot filled battlefield single player conquest missions we have come to expect, Bad Company actually delivers a fully fledged and thoroughly enjoyable storyline. You play as Private Preston Marlow, a new recruit to a division of the army known as B-Company. It's a group of misfit soldiers whose only real tactical use is seen as “Cannon Fodder”. Accompanying Marlow are: Sarge, Haggard and Sweetwater. During the course of the game you will encounter some fantastic humorous dialogue between the team which is a breath of fresh air from the familiar seriousness of most first person shooters of late.
The game is based around a war between the U.S and Russia and as members of B-Company you’re in first. The story moves quickly from routine military based missions to something more personal when they stumble upon the means to become richer than they dreamed. This results in the team going AWOL and where the action really begins.
Graphically the game delivers. The frame rate keeps at a constant level even throughout high particle intense battles both on single player and Multiplayer and the destructible environments (in which almost every wall can be destroyed and there are plenty of ways to do it) are very, very convincing.
The multiplayer aspect of Bad Company has also had a makeover. Its still class based but this time medic and engineer have been merged into one making it a much more enjoyable role, the classes are Assault, Demolitions, Recon, Specialist and Support; it features the game mode “Gold Rush” and soon to be added in the traditional “Conquest” mode from previous games.
Gold Rush is an attack and defend style game mode, in which the attackers are to destroy two gold crates and the defenders obviously... Try to defend. On each map there are several stages. Should the attacking force be successful in destroying the two crates, the defending team is pushed back to another set all in the same continuous map. This happens several times until they reach the last pairing of gold crates to make their last stand / push. Battlefield games are known for their huge multiplayer maps and vehicles which allow players to literally make their own mind on how engage the enemy. I found especially as a Europe based player that Battlefield 2 on the 360 suffered from allot of latency issues. Bad Company however seems to tackle this problem perfectly, Multiplayer servers are hosted on PC’s eliminating any such host advantage and other typical console multiplayer issues usually found. I must say that I’ve yet to experience any sort of LAG issue during online play, even while playing with people mainly located across seas.
The only real issue I have is that the online progression system feels a little stale after playing Call of Duty 4. There are 25 ranks to progress through and 5 items for each class to unlock (6 if you do some marketing rubbish).
All in all Battlefield: Bad Company is not only a step in the right direction for the franchise but a truly great game in itself, I highly recommend it to not only console FPS players but for those of you who are Pc FPS fans unsure if you should make the switch. I was not disappointed and I do not think you will be either.