821st played so far
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Platform: Playstation 3/Xbox 360
Year of Release: 2008
Developer: EA Dice
Publisher: Electronic Arts
After having played many Battlefield games, both Battlefield 1942 and 1943 made it clear to me how much of this is a multiplayer franchise and that the multiplayer FPS has no appeal for me. I picked this as the next game because I figured I’d be able to check off another basic multiplayer game.
Luckily, when preparing I saw this had a singleplayer campaign, as apparently console players would have expected one. I won’t complain – it gives me more to play with in this game.
Our Thoughts
So I guess I got to enjoy a singleplayer Battlefield campaign again, which may sound better than it is. The concept is that you are part of the bad company – troublemakers basically used as cannon fodder. Of course, this means you end up in the middle of a lot of firefights and gaining control of different areas and you’re still going to survive because that’s what the story wants. It’s a good excuse to get you into the action like you want from a military shooter.
It’s all, in the end, pretty standard military shooter stuff. You go from area to area and kill enemies as you come across them, taking over control points and sometimes using some neat weaponry. It’s pretty decent, but there are no real surprises. The one thing that stands out is building damage – it’s fairly realistically simulated and it looks incredibly good. It feels like it’s used more in the start than later, but at least it’s something. There are some collectibles as well, the first using this building damage system, but as they’re all guns, they have limited appeal. It’s probably more so for the hardcore player, but not here.
What makes the singleplayer campaign boring is that you’re spending a lot of time moving from area to area. These are pretty long, boring roads that have little point other than, I guess, to hide loading screens. I’d rather have a quick loading screen, though, as they don’t make any use of the time – no conversations, interesting events or good scenery. It felt pointless and boring.
Final Thoughts
Battlefield: Bad Company does well by its genre: a decent military shooter that has some good graphical qualities and features, but ultimately doesn’t offer anything quite amazing enough. It’s good if you’re a fan, but if not this won’t be the game that will convince you otherwise.