Battlefield: Bad Company was developed by EA DICE, and published by Electronic Arts.  It was released on June 23rd in North America for the XBox 360 and Playstation 3, with a European release just a few days later.  As always, this review focuses on the XBox 360 version, though for all intents and purposes, the game is identical on both platforms.

Story: Private Preston Marlowe, after commiting an unnamed offense, is shipped to the 222nd Army Battalion, otherwise known as “B(ad) Company”.  It’s a bottom-of-the-barrel posting, where the Army sends its troublemakers.  They’re not the guys who get to pose for the recruiting pamphlets.

Preston and his squad (nerdy loudmouth Sweetwater, explosives “expert” Haggard, and Sgt. Redford) are sent out on a mission against the fictional “Russian Federation” to clear a path for the Army’s convoy.  After clearing a hill of enemy soldiers, Sweetwater makes a discovery — one of the soldiers is wearing the mark of a mercenary leader known only as the Legionnaire.  The squad makes nothing of it at first, until Sweetwater tells them of rumors that the Legionnaire pays his mercs in gold bars.  Haggard immediately investigates the fallen merc, and sure enough finds a gold bar.  In the next mission, the squad notices one of the Legionnaire’s transport trucks, seemingly full of gold bars.  It’s enticing, but the truck just happens to cross the border into Serdaristan, a neutral country.  Haggard’s lust for gold gets the better of him, and he crosses the border, firing his shotgun in the air.  Sgt. Redford has to follow him to try and minimalize damage.

Unfortunately, the squad’s radio contact informs Sgt. Redford that due to Haggard’s “invasion”, the Sarge is up for a court martial — and this with only one day until retirement!  Sarge then decides that since the Army is no longer on his side, he might as well follow Haggard and try and get to the Legionnaire’s gold.  As Preston, you follow along with your new squad in search of an early retirement.

The Battlefield series has always focused on multiplayer, and this is the first real effort into crafting a single-player experience.  For the most part, it works — the story, while quite unbelievable, is funny and delivered in a not-too-serious way.  B:BC is a nice change of pace because for once, the fate of the free world doesn’t rest on your shoulders — you’re just trying to get paid!

Graphics: In this day and age, it’s odd for a game to not look good.  B:BC offers all of the usual surroundings in a decent presentation — forests, bunkers, and deserted villages.  Character models look just fine, and move in a realistic fashion.  I didn’t think that the explosion effects were nearly on the same level as other games, though.  I also noticed a couple of momentary hiccups in the graphics (a weird line of light on some surfaces, like it wasn’t coming together properly).  Overall, the graphics get the job done, but there’s nothing new to write home about.

Gameplay: Having never played a Battlefield game before, I was pleasantly surprised to see how well the game controls.  Don’t tell Infinity Ward, but I actually liked B:BC’s control scheme better than CoD4’s.  Everything is polished and tight, and it took no time at all to get used to.

The main draw in B:BC is the destructible world.  Nearly everything you see can be destroyed, cut down, run over, and left in a pile of rubble.  Forest in your way?  Cut it down!  Enemies taking cover in a building?  Take down the walls with a grenade!  Going through and wreaking havoc is definitely fun, even more so when you’re in control of a tank or helicopter.

You also have a nifty arsenal of weapons and gadgets at your disposal.  Each level features unique guns you can pick up, from SMG’s, AR’s, shotguns, and my favorite, sniper rifles.  Many of the guns feature a secondary grenade launcher, and those that don’t will equip you with normal hand-thrown grenades.  You also have a handy medical injector that you can use to replinish your health at any time.  You can use this an unlimited amount of times, and only have to wait about ten seconds for it to recharge.  This gadget makes the game fairly easy, though there are a few spots that present a tough challenge.

Lastly, even though you have a squad, don’t expect them to help you.  At all.  You’ll be doing practically everything yourself.  At least you won’t have to worry about healing them or keeping them alive.

Sound: The good news is that when you’re outside, the game sounds superb.  Gunfire packs that heavy punch that it should, and there is so much going on around you.  Your teammates are voiced nicely, and the actors do a great job of injecting them with personality.

The bad news is whenever you’re indoors.  I don’t know why, but everything from gunfire to voices have a metallic echoing quality, as if the audio was rattling around in a big tin can.  It was really distracting and an otherwise low point for a game with strong sound design.

Multiplayer: B:BC comes with only one multiplayer mode — an objective-based gametype called “goldrush”, which is all about attacking and defending.  The defending team, with unlimited spawns, must protect gold crates from the attackers, who have a limited amount of spawns.  The features from the single-player campaign are present, such as the destructible environments and vehicles.  Players can choose to play as a specific character class — assault, demolition, support, specialist, and recon.  Each class can be leveled up with new abilities and equipment as the player gains rank.  Additionally, players can earn various awards for completing certain tasks.

Some people swear by Battlefield’s multiplayer system, though I personally didn’t like it.  Don’t get me wrong — it’s not awful in the least, it just didn’t gel with the way I play.  I was disappointed that there aren’t any additional modes of play included, such as a straight-up deathmatch, capture-the-flag, or any other of the traditional FPS modes.  But if team-based attack and defend is your game, then it looks like Battlefield is right up your alley.

Achievements: The single-player achievements should be easy to get, however, there’s a catch — by completing the game on the hardest difficulty, you won’t unlock the achievements for clearing the stages on regular.  There are two achievements specifically for collecting hidden gold and finding each unique weapon, but each task is fairly easy to accomplish (and if you missed one, you can go back and pick them up on the title screen’s mission select option).  If you’re a regular reader of my reviews, you know I’m not overly fond of multiplayer achievements — nearly 40% of the available gamerscore is devoted to multiplayer.  For a full list, check out XBox360Achievements.org.

Intangibles: The plot of the game strongly mirrors the plot of the George Clooney film Three Kings, also about four soldiers who go AWOL to steal a large amount of gold (from Saddam Hussein, no less).  It even shares the same irreverent humor of the movie.  I can’t really say if it’s a rip-off or not, but you should definitely check that movie out — it’s one of my favorites.

- There are three LOL worthy spoof videos created for the game, each one parodying a different well known series.  The first is B:BC’s take on Gears of War’s iconic “Mad World” ad, the second deals with Rainbow Six: Vegas‘ gameplay, and the third takes a crack at Solid Snake’s hiding habits.  All three videos can be seen in this handy compilation courtesy of YouTube.

- EA has announced an additional multiplayer mode called “Conquest” that can be downloaded, though at this time, there has been no announcement as to when it will be available.

The Bottom Line:  Battlefield: Bad Company was better than expected when it came to the single-player campaign, and a letdown in the multiplayer area.  If you’re looking for an enjoyable shooter that doesn’t take itself seriously, this is the game for you.  It doesn’t have the depth of Call of Duty 4, or even Halo 3, but it’s obvious that EA DICE never intended to compete with those games.  I’d consider this game a for-sure rental, as you can get through the story in under 10 hours easily.

8/10 for an enjoyable story mode and excellent controls.

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