Battlefield: Bad Company
 | This article needs to be updated. (June 2008) |
Battlefield: Bad Company (also known as BF:BC, or just Bad Company) is a first-person shooter developed at EA DICE, released in the U.S. on June 23 Template:Vgy[3] for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.[4] The game was hinted at just before the release of Battlefield 2,[5] and then announced sixteen months later.[6]
Bad Company puts the player in a fictional war against Russia, where gamers will lead a squad of AWOL soldiers fighting both Russians and Mercenaries.
Bad Company applies some new features to the franchise, including an environment that can be almost entirely destroyed,[7] and a single-player storyline. The single player campaign and some multiplayer maps take place in the fictional Eastern European country of Serdaristan.[8]
Story
The storyline of Battlefield: Bad Company revolves around a particular 4-man squad of military misfits during a fictional war in the near-future that pits America against Russia. This squad is one of the many groups of its kind found in the 222nd Army battalion, more commonly known as "Bad Company". This company is comprised of the insubordinate and often incompetent troublemakers whose uses in the battlefield are limited to the role of cannon fodder.
The men in that particular squad, however, feel that they deserve more respect than they end up receiving, and all of that culminates in them going AWOL and pursuing their own quest.
The squad consists of Private Preston Marlowe, the player-controlled protagonist, Private Terence Sweetwater, a brainy, analytical soldier who, all-in-all is afraid of fighting[9] and serves as the foil (literature) for Private George Gordon Haggard Jr., a.k.a "Haggard". Haggard is the comic, in-your-face soldier whose love of fire and explosions made him a soldier, but also landed him in Bad Company. Naturally, he is the squads demolitions "expert". At the head of the squad is Sergeant Samuel D. Redford (although a video trailer refers to the sergeant as "Clarence Redford"). Unlike most soldiers in B-Company, Sergeant Redford volunteered for the position after an agreement to cut his tour of duty short if he accepted. Eager and very much content to leave the war to "go fishing", he always takes up the chance to remind Haggard and Sweetwater that their lives will soon stop being his responsibility.
At the end of the first mission that Preston and the rest complete, Sweetwater stumbles upon the body of a mercenary from the group called the "Legionnaires". They operate under the "Legionnaire", and their slogan is a Latin phrase "Acta Non Verba", or "Action Not Words". Sweetwater continues to tell the squad about the mercenaries and how they are possibly the deadliest army in the world. Redford dismisses Sweetwater's claims as "campfire tales", and Haggard seems generally indifferent. Sweetwater, however, continues citing things he has heard about the Legionnaires, and mentions how each mercenary is reportedly paid in solid gold bars. Haggard then excitedly turns around and moves toward the body, suggesting he "check for a pulse in his pockets". After a few seconds of hurried searching, Haggard rises and exclaims as he fishes out a gold bar from the dead mercenary's pockets. The squad then splits the bar 4 ways and goes back to work, though Haggard is convinced that more gold awaits them. Curiosity draws them from their second mission when they spot more mercenaries loading a supply truck. As the truck drives off, a gold bar falls from it, convincing the squad to pursue the vehicle. The truck ends up driving past the border into a fictional Eastern-European country called Serdaristan. Because Serdaristan is neutral in the conflict between America and Russia, the squad is unable to pursue the trucks any further. Haggard, however, loses control of himself with the promise of gold and begins to excitedly fire his shotgun in the air while yelling "there's gold in them hills!" He runs past the shocked squad and single-handedly invades a neutral country.
Because of this, Redford orders the squad to pursue Haggard in order to prevent him from causing any more damage. When they get a hold of Haggard, Mike-One-Juliet, the squad's mission coordinator, calls Redford on the radio and reprimands him for their invasion. She specifically says that Redford, who was one day away from retirement, would be subject to a court martial for Haggard's offense and their subsequent invasion into neutral soil. Hesitantly, Redford decides that there is little else for their squad to do other than run, and since Haggard could point them in the direction of the mercenaries' gold, they have their destination. From then on, the squad acts largely independent of the US Army, and instead fights their own battles in the pursuit of gold.
Features
Destructible Environments
The Frostbite game engine allows 90% of the environment to be destroyed[10], including buildings, vegetation, vehicles, and even the ground itself, and more. Still, for gameplay purposes, the frames of buildings and other objects will remain indestructible, to prevent the environment from becoming completely flat. Additionally, the game will feature dynamic lighting to correlate with the changing environment.[11]
Classes
In a move similar to Battlefield 2142, the number of soldier ranks will be lowered, resulting in a combination of the classic soldier classes. The classes in this game are: Assault, Demolitions, Recon, Specialist, and Support.[12]
Weapons
The Battlefield Bad Company Beta has an arsenal of available infantry firearms, including three handguns. The M9 pistol for the U.S., a .45 caliber handgun for the Russians and a high-powered revolver for the Mid Eastern force. These three handguns are only available for the Recon (Sniper) class.
Several pieces of equipment are available to the infantry, including anti-tank mines, remote charges, mortar attack designators, laser guided missile, anti-vehicle missile launchers (RPG-7 or AT4) and grenade launchers such as the M203 and the GP-25.
The Battlefield Bad Company Beta contains 20 locked guns, 10 can be unlocked through playing the game, while 5 of the other 10 will be unlocked in free promotions before and after release. The remaining 5 unlockable weapons will only be made available through purchase of the Gold Edition of the game or by achieving the final rank (level 25). A full list of weapons is available at the website PlanetBattlefield.com.
Vehicles
Battlefield: Bad Company has an assortment of Land, Air, and Sea vehicles, including AH-64 Apache, UH-60 Black Hawk, Mil Mi-24 Hind MK III, Ka-52 Hokum, Mi-28 Havoc, T-90, GAZ-3937, M1A2 Abrams, M3A3 Bradley, BMD-3, HMMWV, Golf cart, and Desert Patrol Vehicles.
Single Player
There are seven missions in the single player campaign. Each mission in the game is said to last between 1-2 hours. Throughout each mission are hidden gold bars that can be discovered, but this is not a required task, much like Halo 3's skulls, Call of Duty 4's intel items, or Grand Theft Auto 4's flying rats (pigeons).[13].
Upon the player's death, they are able to respawn without penalty. However in missions where the player can fail an objective (for example preventing the enemy crossing a bridge), if the player fails then they must restart from the last checkpoint, rather than respawning.[13]
Multiplayer
Multiplayer supports up to 24 players, and runs on PC-dedicated servers.[14] Gold Rush is the only multiplayer mode included in the initial release of Battlefield: Bad Company but another mode, Conquest will be released for free in a future update. The setup of the game is an Attackers vs. Defenders scenario, in which one team must defend two crates filled with gold while the other team attempts to destroy the crates. Once the crates are destroyed, more of the map is available to fight on with new crates appearing, along with added reinforcement numbers. The attacking team has a limited amount of respawns to achieve their goal of capturing the 2-4 gold stashes either by setting charges or simply destroying the 2 crates of gold at each base. The defending team has an unlimited amount of respawns available, but their goal is to exhaust the attacking teams respawns.[13]
The Conquest game mode will be returning in Bad Company due to overwhelming requests from players during the beta testing. This mode will be available as a free download post-launch, however there has been no date announced for it's release.[15]
Awards
Online, players can earn different types of awards. Trophies are awarded for multiple kills in a certain class, kills to defend an objective and for other team-related actions. These can be awarded to the player multiple times during the game. Patches can be earned for gaining certain trophies and then completing certain criteria in an online match. Patches can only be awarded once to a player. Wildcards are awarded once to a player for a combination of many different criteria. These are harder than trophies and patches to unlock. In addition to these in-game awards, the game is compatible with achievements for the Xbox 360. It has not been confirmed whether or not the game will support trophies on the PlayStation 3.
Find All Five
Find All Five is a way for players to unlock specific weapons. They are codes that enable free downloadable weapons via 5 promotional programs. The website will act as the hub for information on obtaining these unlocks and how to redeem unlock codes. These "Find All Five" weapons include the F2000 assault rifle, USAS-12 semi-automatic shotgun, M60 LMG, QBU-88 sniper rifle and silenced UZI SMG.
To unlock these five EA's website instructs users to participate in the BF Veteran's program, check the player's stats online after playing the game, register for the BF newsletter, pre-order the game through participating stores, and get to rank 4 in the demo.
Reception
| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| 1Up.com | B |
| Edge | 7 out of 10 |
| Eurogamer | 8/10 |
| Game Informer | 9.25/10 |
| Game Players | 9.0/10[16] |
| GamePro | 90 |
| GameSpot | 8.5/10 |
| IGN | 8.6/10 |
| TeamXbox | 9.1/10 |
| X-Play | 4/5 |
Reviews for Battlefield Bad Company were generally positive, with the deformable environments, large maps, diverse array of vehicles and multiplayer mode earning it praise from critics.
Trailers
In a trailer released June 16th, 2008, codenamed "Snake Eyes", the team makes a reference to the Metal Gear series. Sweetwater, a member of Bad Company thinks he's seen someone wearing an eye-patch (a reference to Solid Snake), hiding inside a barrel, to which Haggard responds, "A barrel? Why would someone want to hide in there? That's as stupid as hiding in a cardboard box!" After the barrel jitters with Metal Gear's ubiquitous red exclamation mark over it, Sweetwater replies, "...Like some kind of real solid... Metal! Like some kind of Japanese thing!" Haggard fires a grenade at it, and finds, amongst the wreckage of the barrel, a black eye-patch. He puts it on and proceeds to bump into Sweetwater.
In another subsequently released trailer codenamed "Bad World", Haggard is seen running down a destroyed street while Gary Jules' Mad World is sung in the background by Sweetwater (a reference to the Gears of War trailer). Haggard then tells Sweetwater to knock it off and proposes Shortnin' Bread instead, after which they both pause awkwardly.
The trailer codenamed "Rainbow Sprinkles" (a reference to Rainbow Six) features the squad trying to lead a stealth mission, a fact to which both Haggard and Sweetwater seem oblivious and indifferent to as they continue to argue over Redford's hand signals ("stay low and stack up"), assuming it's a game of charades. Redford quickly explains them "Sign Language 101", although they both disagree, at which point Redford gives up and tells them to breach a door in front of them. Haggard shrugs, throws in a grenade, and proceeds to walk out opening fire with Sweetwater, while Marlowe asks if he still should be "stacking" now.
References
- ^ a b Battlefield: Bad Company
- ^ "Battlefield: Bad Company Page". GamePro. Retrieved 2008-06-19.
- ^ "Official Website".
- ^ Ben Karl, "Battlefield: Bad Company," GamePro 235 (April 2008): 36.
- ^ "DICE Announces Mystery Projects". IGN. 2005-04-25. Retrieved 2008-03-28.
- ^ "EA Invites Battlefield: Bad Company". IGN. 2006-08-21. Retrieved 2008-03-28.
- ^ "Battlefield: Bad Company Hands-on". GameSpot. 2007-06-20. Retrieved 2008-03-28.
- ^ Battlefield: Bad Company
- ^ [1]
- ^ http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/34159/Battlefield-Bad-Company-Screenshots ]
- ^ [2]
- ^ Battlefield: Bad Company list of classes
- ^ a b c "Battlefield: Bad Company Features". Planet Battlefield. Retrieved 2008-03-16.
- ^ EA - Action, Fantasy, Sports, and Strategy Videogames
- ^ Battlefield: Bad Company
- ^ Gameplanet (2008-06-20). "Battlefield: Bad Company review". Gameplanet. Retrieved 2008-06-20.