Battlefield: Bad Company is a great game. The multiplayer is deep and
rewarding and even with one mode, it offers lots of lasting enjoyment.
More on the multiplayer later. When you start the single player side
of the game, the flaws are obvious.
The most problematic portion of the game is the artificial intelligence
both for your squad mates and your enemy. While moving from objective
to objective, your three other squad mates will lag behind, waiting for
you to engage the enemy and when you do, they will shoot at anything
that isn't an enemy solider vehicle. It isn't a stretch to say that
combined the three of them killed 10 enemies through the entire game.
You're enemies aren't much brighter but they can hit anything they
choose and the choice is you. The other enemies completely ignore your
squad mates and pummel you with rounds at every opportunity. They must
have got the memo that your AI companions were going to mail it in
through the entire campaign.
The graphics are also on the poor side during the single player
campaign. The particular geographical setting (mountainous eastern
Europe/Russia) leads to a lot of the levels looking the same and they
all seem to run together in one long-never ending skirmish.
One of the most annoying part of the game is the respawn mode. When
you die, you respawn at the last checkpoint but nothing has been
reset. Enemies you have killed prior to dying are still gone as well
as vehicles. This also means your vehicles and your ammo. Many a time
I would be destroyed by a tank in a tank and then have to hoof it back
about 3 minutes to where I was terminated. Also, I would run out of
ammo (there are so many guns in the game, you hardly get resupplied
without going out of your way to look for it) and be forced to take a
enemy position using a grenade launcher and a knife, not fun.
Well, back to the good stuff. All of these problems disappear in the
online modes, the AI is replaced with humans, "kits" which supply ammo
are all around and the vehicles you can use respawn frequently. All of
this leads to an intense war-like experience online.
So, forget the single player and jump head first into the online world of Battlefield: Bad Company.
