Batllefield: Bad company (Review inside) Thread

Alright, I figured I'd give this a go, seeing as the last Battlefield game I played sort of was 2124 or something along those lines.
I'm playing on 360 for the record.

So this is how it starts. The unskippable EA intro, which I still find myself hating. Then the opening intro thing with the classic battlefield theme song (one of my favourites) or atleast a remixed version of it. Better than nothing, I suppose.
Then to a menu, with singleplayer, multiplayer, options and extras. As I thougt it was pretty dark, I went to options to turn my brightness up, but no. You get a black box with a slightly different black box inside and a white box with a slightly different shade of white inside, and hten you get told to change your monitors setting.
Yes, I will change for this one only game when I've had it perfect for all the others, thank you. Minor inconvenience, maybe, but still a frustrating one.

Anyway, let's move on to singleplayer. The singleplayer was sort of surprising. It has characters and a story. Nothing extraordinary though, the story isn't very gripping and does not make much sense at all. But it is there. The singleplayer is more like a tutorial anyway (a pretty long one at that.)
The graphics look nice. Again it isn't unbeliavably good, but it is more than adequate.
So you start the singleplayer, and you get introduced to bad company, a bunch of rejects basically (All except one.). They are invulnerable though, and one has a rocket launcher he will never, ever once shoot at light or heavy tanks. Seriously, you fuckers, don't tell me to search for a rocket launcher when that guy there has one.
Anyway, the story has you killing russians first, learning to use an artillery piece, and then stumbling upon some unguarded case of gold. Then you go chase more gold and learn about more tools and guns along the way. It is very confusing. Why do the mercenaries leave the gold unguarded so many times? Why can they not manage to kill 4 (well, 3) american rejects who are constantly outnumbered and take multiple hits? Why does the squad need more gold after it has found 5 or so cases full of it?
Maybe I am overthinking the singleplayer there. At any rate, more about the gameplay:

The gameplay feels like a inbred version of battlefield 2. It has destructible cover, which is one redeeming feature, but the netcode is cheap (more about this in multiplayer section) there is no prone, weapons feel like toys and no automatic weapon except shotguns have less than 50 ammo. There are no classes in the singleplayer, you just get one tool (Powertool, rocket launcher, laser designator etc.) one weapon +grenade/sideram (Sidearms only come with snipers though.), a insta kill knife and a self injector that instantly gets you to 100 hp. It is more than enough. A tank will have trouble killing you on a field unless it runs you over. In singleplayer I felt like the enemies go down pretty slowly, taking around 20-30 bullets in the chest, but oh well. It's easy enough to stab them to death, if you are smart with the injector.
The destructible cover is... Well it's sort of there. Would be a bit more impressive if it didn't remind me so much of Soldner that had sort of similar destructibility. The ground deformation is pretty nice, and would be nicer with prone.

So that's the singleplayer experience, more or less. Multiplayer is different. I'll start with the classes.

Assault gets assault rifle + grenade launcher, a self injector (needs to be unlocked.) that works like in singleplayer, except the healing isn't instant. They also get throwable grenades. It's pretty much medium range killer, this one.

Next up is Demolition. Shotgun, AT mines (Needs unlocking) grenades and rocket launcher. This one could use a sidearm for medium range combat, as the shotgun only works up close (and is instakill there).

Then we have the Recon. Sniperrifle + sidearm, laser designator (needs unlocking, harr harr.) and motion detectors that he throws around (They don't last long though.) This class can be very usefull, since the laser designator is great at killing or scaring off armoured targets. But mostly the snipers will just try to kill random enemies.

Specialist it next. silenced submachinegun + grenades, C4 (unlockable) and some sort of tracer darts to use on vehicles. This class is good at close to medium combat, only the shotgun beats it up close.

Last one we got is support, and my favourite. Light machinegun, medikits, power tool and the Mortar targeter (unlockable.). You will note a lack of shockpaddles to revive people with. You don't revive people here.

I am not a fan of the classes really, because they limit the weapons useable (I would want a assault rifle for the demolition class.) and there is no class to give ammunition which I find myself in constant need of, and I don't really want to run to a chace all the time. All classes have three different main weapons unlocked first, one for each side (Russia, US and some third.)
Every second rank you rise will earn you one unlock of your choice. There are two weapons to be unlocked for each class, and one more for each class you get at level 25 (Or immideatly with the gold edition) and additionally one more set to unlock by doing some various thing such as signing up for the newsletter. One of which requires you to play the demo until rank 5 or so (Which is stupid since you already got the game.)
Anyway, it plays much like you'd expect. There is only one gamemode, which is attack & defend (Or goldrush as they call it.) basically, defenders kill enough attacker and they win, attackers destroy enough of the gold cases and they win.
All maps differ enough. One is almost purely infantry combat (Attackers get a car) while some have 4 tanks + attack helicopters. There is a lack of APC's, planes and transport helicopters though.
They are supposedly going to another gamemode in a patch soon, so I guess they released an incomplete game?
I'll go on.
There is a lack of a server browser which is irritating, when you joined you get dumped into a random squad, and can't change easily. One time I joined a game where it was 4 v 0 so the system needs work. Also worth mentioning is that the servers are constantly overloaded and getting into multiplayer can be a real pain. Sometimes the servers bugs so that your ranks go away and your unlocks as well and you can not get more ranks by playing. I think this has happened twice now (Took them two days to fix last time.)
After actually getting into a game, you might notice a few things. People teamkill for choppers and artillery rights (*Sniff*, good old battlefield teamkilling for vehicles.), shells will miss your tank but you still take damage, spawns will bug so you spawn mid-air and other irritating stuff. If you manage to get out of your spawn you are very likely to get sniped.
If you get lucky enough to get into a good squad, you will have good use of the squad spawn function, which basically spawns you right behind a squad member (Usefull for spawn camping!). Oftentimes it will startle your squad member and he will think you are the enemy and kill you.
There is also a spotting function in the game that I have no idea how to trigger. Sometimes when you aim at a enemy tank you will tell your teammembers and the tank will appear on the map. Sometimes it just won't work.

Sound:
The sound is very good, the voice acting believable and music fits.

Overall, it is pretty average. It's a worse version of battlefield 2 with destructible cover and singleplayer, basically. If it's unfair to compare it to battlefield 2 I do not know what to compare it with.
(This review is entirely subjective as well.)

I still play it alot though, and I do not know why.

EDIT: As a later addition to the review, I must say that it is riddled with bugs and other technical problems. It freezes requiring you to restart the xbox, and sometimes you come across horrendous framerates for nor reasons at all.
The 3rd person vehicle camera can get stuck in buildings, which does not exactly help.

Edited by: Urgel

Urgel wrote:

Overall, it is pretty average. It's a worse version of battlefield 2

That was my exact thought after playing for five minutes.