Battlefield: Bad Company

Battlefield: Bad Company
Battlefield: Bad Company cover (Xbox 360)
Developer(s)	EA Digital Illusions CE
Publisher(s)	Electronic Arts
Series	Battlefield series
Engine	Frostbite Engine
Platform(s)	PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Genre(s)	First Person Shooter, Action
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Battlefield: Bad Company (also known as Bad Company or BF: BC) is a first-person shooter developed at EA DICE, released in the U.S. on June 23 Template:Vgy for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game was hinted at just before the release of Battlefield 2, and then announced sixteen months later.

Bad Company puts the player in a fictional war between the United States and the Russian Federation, where players will lead a squad of AWOL soldiers fighting Russians, MEC (Middle East Coalition) troops and Legionnaire mercenaries.

The game applies some new features to the franchise, including an environment that can be almost entirely destroyed, besides the very basic supports of buildings and certain metalic structures like antennas or cranes, and a single-player storyline. The single player campaign and some multiplayer maps take place in Russia, the fictional Eastern European country of Serdaristan, and an unnamed fictional Middle Eastern country, in a city called Sadiz, which is supposed to be located somewhere on the Caspian Sea.

Plot

The storyline of Battlefield: Bad Company revolves around a particular four man squad of military misfits during a fictional war in the near-future that pits the Russian Federation against the United States. What the two sides are fighting for is not discussed, although at one point one character asks what its about, another says natural gas, probably meaning oil. This cause of the war is of little importance to the characters. This squad is one of many found in the 222nd Army battalion, The "B" Company, more commonly known as "Bad Company". This company is composed of the insubordinate troublemakers whose use in the battlefield is limited to the role of cannon fodder. Because of this, "Bad Company" is often sent before special forces because they are "expendable".

The squad consists of Private Preston Marlowe, the game's protagonist (who was put in B-Company for an incident with a helicopter. Not much is known about this event except for an in-game comment by Marlowe, "If I landed it a few feet to the left, no one would have noticed"), Private Terrence Sweetwater (put in B-Company for getting a virus on the military computer), a soldier who is generally intelligent, and has a dry sense of humor. and serves as the foil for Private George Gordon Haggard Jr, a.k.a "Haggard". Haggard often provides comic relief, when he isn't raving about "blowing things up," which landed him in B-Company for blowing up a latrine. Sergeant Samuel D Redford is in charge of this squad in Bad Company, and unlike many other Bad Company soldiers, he volunteered for his position, despite the company's high mortality rate. In exchange, the army would shorten his term of service. Through the start of the game, Redford shows his love for fishing, and hopes to do so as soon as the war is over.

At the end of the first mission that the squad completes, Sweetwater stumbles upon the body of a mercenary from the group called the "Legionnaires". They operate under The Legionnaire, a ruthless mercenary who pays in gold. 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 "checks 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 four 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 thar 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 which would cause Redford's military term to be significantly raised. 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. They reach a harbour, where the U.S army catches up to them, ordering them to drop their weapons and surrender. On the next mission however, it turns out that a deal was struck, and the squad would have charges dropped if they investigate Serdaristan. Since the squad was officially AWOL, the U.S army would not be directly responsible if they were captured. The squad was then given orders to capture the president of Serdaristan, Zavomir Serdar, by advancing to his palace through the President's golf course. However, after the squad had reached the president, Mike-One-Juliet informs them that they could not be given an evacuation, and was told to escape on their own. This led to the president helping them escape by his own leisurely Mil Mi-24 helicopter on the roof of the palace.

After a long flight through Serdaristan, the helicopter is shot down by a Ka-52 and crashes in a field behind enemy lines. The player character (Preston) wakes up alone and dazed, and quickly contacts Mike-One-Juliet for help in finding the rest of his squad. Following Mike-One-Juliet's directions, Preston continues on his journey until he enters the basement of a communication's base and watches security feed of The Legionnaire taunting the president of Serdaristan before shooting the security camera. Preston sneaks up to the top of a mountain, where his squad are being held in a monastery, and meets them while they are fighting off some mercenaries. They all escape and save the dictator of Serdaristan from execution at the hands of mercenaries, who had been commanded to eliminate him by The Legionnaire. The squad drives off in a military patrol boat and leave the president on a desert island, fulfilling his pleas for exile. The squad, following the direction of the dictator of Serdaristan, arrives in an unfinished city called Sadiz somewhere on the Caspian Sea where they meet stiff Arab resistance. Halfway into the mission, the squad is contacted by Mike-One-Juliet who tells them that the US Army is mounting a counter-offensive, and Haggard suggests to slow down the Army's advance. The squad then blows up two bridges to hinder the US troops, whom the squad fears will steal their gold.

The squad finds the vast amounts of gold in a garage, but are attacked by The Legionnaire in his personal Ka-52 before they could do anything and they quickly retreated to the end of a pier, where they find an AA emplacement, which is destroyed by the Legionnaire just before Preston manages to reach it. Preston then shoots down the helicopter and the squad returns to the gold, but by the time they could reach it, they witness the US Army loading the gold into trucks. They begin to give up and attempt to leave before anyone could see them, but an officer asks them where they are going, and the squad attempts to blend in by saying that they had just finished securing the area. The soldier tells them to take a truck and join the convoy, awkwardly saying that the trucks are full of scrap metal. The squad happily obliges and takes a truck, which actually contains gold. Shortly into the journey, the squad's truck, which is the last of the convoy, makes a sharp turn right breaking off from the rest of the convoy. The game fades to black with the Squad cheerfully discussing their plans of what to do with their share of the gold as they drive towards the sunset.

The game crossfades and shows the player the wreckage of the Ka-52. The Legionnaire rises from the burning wreckage, seemingly unhurt.

Features

The player is able to use their weapon to damage the environment enabling the player to create ambush sites or take out a sniper's cover.

Destructible Environments

The Frostbite game engine allows 90% of the environment to be destroyed, including buildings, vegetation, vehicles, other players and the ground itself. For gameplay purposes, the frames of some buildings and objects remain indestructible to prevent total destruction of key points. Additionally, the game features dynamic lighting to correlate with the changing environment.

Classes

In a move similar to Battlefield 2142, the number of soldier ranks is lowered, resulting in a combination of the classic soldier classes. The classes in this game are: Assault, Demolitions, Recon, Specialist, and Support.

Vehicles

Battlefield: Bad Company has an assortment of military vehicles from each of the game's three factions that can be used by the player. Tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, armored cars, attack helicopters, patrol boats, and surprisingly, a golf cart are all available in the game's single player and multiplayer modes.

Single Player

Throughout each of the seven missions of the game are hidden gold bars and collectible weapons that can be discovered, but this is not a required task, much like Halo 3's skulls, Call of Duty 4's intel items, and Gears of War's COG tags.

Multiplayer

Multiplayer supports up to 24 players, and runs on PC-dedicated servers. Gold Rush is the only multiplayer mode included in the initial release of Battlefield: Bad Company. 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.

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, the release date is set to be in the near future but has not been announced yet by DICE or EA.

Ranks

The game has 25 ranks, each from the US Army (Corporal, Sergeant, Colonel etc.), much like its PC counterpart, Battlefield 2 (Although it uses Marine Corps Ranks).

The highest rank (General of the Army) takes 37,000 in-game points, compared to an average of 150-300 per game. Unlock credits may be obtained by ranking up and then the aforementioned credits may be used to unlock weapons. However, the weapons included with the Find All Five program may not be unlocked using these credits. Unlock credits are not granted with every rank. Five weapons may be unlocked only by ranking up to Rank 25 or by purchasing the Gold Edition.

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.

Find All Five

Find All Five is a way for players to unlock specific weapons. The game's official website includes promotional events that give the player codes for free downloadable weapons. These "Find All Five" weapons include the F2000 assault rifle, USAS-12 semi-automatic shotgun, M60 light machine gun, QBU-88 sniper rifle and silenced UZI submachine gun.
The five events from EA's website instruct the users to participate in the Battlefield 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

Reception

Review scores

Publication	Score
1Up.com	B
Edge	7 out of 10
Eurogamer	8/10
Game Informer	9.25/10
Game Players	9.0/10
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, high-quality audio, and diverse array of vehicles earning it praise from critics.

Trailers

Three trailers were released for Bad Company, each parodying popular video game series. The first trailer parodied Metal Gear Solid called Snake Eyes, the second parodied Gears of War called Bad World and the third parodied Rainbow Six called Rainbow Sprinkles.

External links

• Battlefield: Bad Company Official Website
• Battlefield: Bad Company Developer Website