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Battlefield: Bad Company

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Battlefield: Bad Company
Battlefield: Bad Company cover (Xbox 360)
Developer(s)EA Digital Illusions CE
Publisher(s)Electronic Arts
SeriesBattlefield
EngineFrostbite Engine
Platform(s)PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Genre(s)First Person Shooter, Action[2]
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

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 player takes on the role of Preston Marlowe, who is a rookie to 222nd Army battalion, sent to B-Company, a squad of insubordinate soldiers and misfits who are risking everything by going AWOL on a personal quest for gold deep behind enemy lines.[9][10] Preston is led by Sergeant Redford who will retire in a few days, and is accompanied by Private Sweetwater, the "nerdy" guy of the squad, and Haggard, a pyromaniac who has a craving for blowing things up. It has been stated that the movies Kelly's Heroes and Three Kings have been strong influences for the story.[11] In the demo, it appears that the United States is engaged in a war with Russia, who is hiring a mercenary army to reinforce their ranks. Throughout the story the squad pursues the gold of the "legionnaire" the commander of the mercenary army who pays his men in gold bars.

Features

The player will be able to use their weapons 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[12], 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.[13]

Classes

In a move similar to Battlefield 2142, the number of soldier classes will be lowered, resulting in a combination of the classic soldier classes. The classes in this game are: Assault, Demolitions, Recon, Specialist, and Support.[14]

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 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, Black Eagle, T-90, GAZ-3937, M1A2 Abrams, M3A3 Bradley, BMD-3, HMMWV, Golf cart, and Desert Patrol Vehicles.

Single Player

According to Bad Company's achievement list, there are seven missions including Welcome to Bad Company, Acta Non Verba, Crossing Over, Par for the Course, Air Force One, Crash and Grab, and Ghost Town. The mission in the demo was The end of Welcome to Bad Company.

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 or Call of Duty 4's intel items.[15].

Upon the player's death, they are able to respawn without penalty.[15]

Multiplayer

Multiplayer will support up to 24 players, and will run on PC-dedicated servers.[16] 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 stash. The defending team has an unlimited amount of respawns available, but their goal is to exhaust the attacking teams tickets (respawns).[15]

The Conquest game mode will be returning in Bad Company. This mode will be available as a free download post-launch, however there has been no date announced for it's release.[17]


Maps

The maps in Battlefield Bad Company are:

Ascension- An Infantry focused map, following an ascending path up a hillside village, most of the fighting takes place in houses and back streets until the battle progress's to an ancient monastery where players get to battle it out face to face along the dark corridors of the monastery.

Harvest Day-A Vehicle orientated map, taking place across a farming town. Attackers can choose to run across open fields or take the high-line, through a mountain forest.

Over and Out- Is the continuation of Harvest day, The battle is taken away from open farming fields to a more densly populated part of the village, were you'll find houses. Afte the attackers have progressed, they will come across some old castle ruins, The End of the Battle takes place in a secluded communications centre (which can be quite crowded for defenders)

Oasis is also a vehicle orientated map, which follows a desrt river. This map was featured in the demo. Defenders will have to stay sharp, for this map is easy for attackers.

End of the line

Valley Run

Deconstruction as the name refers to, Deconstruction takes place over an unfinished construction yard, it features a bridge, and lots of unfinished buildings.

Xbox 360 Beta

A multiplayer beta for the Xbox 360 was released on March 25, 2008. To play the multiplayer beta, users had to fill out an application form on IGN.com and, if they fit certain criteria, would be e-mailed a code to be redeemed on the Xbox Live Marketplace. When Public Beta Keys ran out, users had to subscribe to IGN's FilePlanet or preorder the game at Gamestop. Two maps were playable in the beta, Ascension and Oasis and one multiplayer mode, Gold Rush. The beta came to an end on April 28, 2008. [18]

Demo

A demo was released on June 5, 2008. The single-player portion of the demo puts the player at the start of the 'B' company career and introduces them to some of the game's characters, while the multiplayer part includes the Gold Rush mode on the Oasis map. The demo allows players to rank up to level 4 (although it is possible to rank up to level 5, however it is extremely unlikely as the player would need 140 million points to do so), giving the player three weapon unlocks and, for those who complete the demo to level 4, it unlocks an Uzi for multiplayer in the full game. People who pre-ordered the game received the demo one week early on May 29.

Criticisms

There have been criticisms regarding the game's development and downloadable extras.[19] DICE has stated that five of the ten weapons will be available instantly with the Gold Edition of the game, or by ranking up to level 25 in the regular game. [20] The other five are a part of the 'Find all Five' promotion offered by DICE.

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

Early reviews for Battlefield Bad Company are 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 refrence 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

  1. ^ a b Battlefield: Bad Company
  2. ^ "Battlefield: Bad Company Page". GamePro. Retrieved 2008-06-19.
  3. ^ "Official Website".
  4. ^ Ben Karl, "Battlefield: Bad Company," GamePro 235 (April 2008): 36.
  5. ^ "DICE Announces Mystery Projects". IGN. 2005-04-25. Retrieved 2008-03-28.
  6. ^ "EA Invites Battlefield: Bad Company". IGN. 2006-08-21. Retrieved 2008-03-28.
  7. ^ "Battlefield: Bad Company Hands-on". GameSpot. 2007-06-20. Retrieved 2008-03-28.
  8. ^ Battlefield: Bad Company
  9. ^ Battlefield: Bad Company
  10. ^ Battlefield: Bad Company
  11. ^ Battlefield: Bad Company IRC Dev Chat Transcript - Planet Battlefield
  12. ^ http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/34159/Battlefield-Bad-Company-Screenshots ]
  13. ^ [1]
  14. ^ Battlefield: Bad Company list of classes
  15. ^ a b c "Battlefield: Bad Company Features". Planet Battlefield. Retrieved 2008-03-16.
  16. ^ EA - Action, Fantasy, Sports, and Strategy Videogames
  17. ^ Battlefield: Bad Company
  18. ^ "Battlefield: Bad Company Beta Info". EA DICE. Retrieved 2008-04-26.
  19. ^ Battlefield: Bad Company Impressions | Kotaku Australia
  20. ^ Planet Battlefield - Maps, News, Battlefield 2, Videos, Downloads
  21. ^ Edge, Future Publishing, 2008-08, pp. pp90-91 {{citation}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Check date values in: |date= (help)
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