A couple weeks ago we got a first look at the single-player portions of EA’s upcoming shooter, Battlefield: Bad Company. After more than enough time with our hands on the controller we walked away feeling very excited about what is coming from those crazy Swedish developers DICE. Hopefully plenty of you reading this got a chance to get in on the multiplayer beta that was released a while back and have a feel for what Bad Company is all about but if not don't worry for the full retail release is coming soon. To read all about the information on the multiplayer beta go back and read our detailed preview still up on the website for you to check out. Almost everyone should be familiar with the Battlefield franchise and if you are you will know that single-player is not a word usually used in association with the games. All this is about to change with Bad Company and let us be the first to tell you that it is good, really good. The insanely destructible environments, crazy multiplayer, and top-notch polish are only the beginning of what is becoming a full-fledged single-player experience.
DICE brought us a near final build of the game and the multiple solo levels that we got to play through felt more like what a Battlefield game should have been from the beginning. This is not saying we have not liked Battlefield games in the past, but until we got a chance to take the driver’s seat with some single-player missions we never knew what we were missing in the past. Everything in Bad Company is about teamwork, without a good squad you will be useless. People wanting a Rambo-like experience may feel a bit disappointed but the creativity aspect is still there. For example one of the missions involved taking out some enemy armored vehicles positioned on a bridge and we found three different ways to complete the objective: simply use a tank and destroy them, find a special weapon and call in an air-strike, or just pull out your rocket launcher and hit the gas tanks lining the backside of the convoy.
Each one of these different options left us with a different outcome, giving us the choice to either go under the bridge, on the bridge, or so on, to continue the game. Other features that stood out such as the AI really impressed all the journalists we were sitting in the gaming session with. Bad Company will kick your ass and take names when it comes to the single-player missions; some running as long as two hours to complete. Taking some cues from the hit title Call of Duty 4, Bad Company is going for the classic Battlefield arcade style with a bit of realism thrown in for good measure. Some of the weapons are so over the top that they could only make sense in a Battlefield game while others were as basic as the AK-47. Infinite health packs (timed release) added helped to even out the tough enemies and made the game much more enjoyable than had the developers decided to take a total realistic approach. It felt as though the multiplayer beta was just a demo to what the developers had in store for us with the solo stuff.
Something we mentioned earlier, the creativity left up to the gamer was evident more and more as our time with the single-player progressed. It is hard to describe but if you could think of the past Battlefield games and their massive open-world environments but instead of 50+ other human players causing chaos there is only you and your squad against an entire army. Because the environments are so huge the options left to the player are endless. Vehicles line every corner of the map and what you decide to do with these (or more importantly where you decide to go) will impact and change the mission at every turn. At one time we got sick of driving down a particular curvy road so we smashed through a fence and took off through a river, straight at the enemy base. Could we have taken the safe route, sniped some guards, and snuck in through the back entrance? Sure, but what fun would that have been without at least trying another way and DICE gave us plenty of options?
