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Battlefield: Bad Company Impressions

by March 26th 2008 2:43 AM EDT1 Comments

The closed beta for DICE’s next installment in the Battlefield series went live yesterday. Bad Company is exclusive to the Xbox 360 and PS3, and it’s also the first BF game to utilize DICE’s shiny, new Frostbite engine. I had a chance to sit down with the game and see just what it’s all about.

First, I mentioned that Bad Company will be the first Battlefield game to use the Frostbite engine. The most notable feature of the engine is its ability to render destructible environments, and this is really where the game shines. Blowing stuff up with RPG’s proves to be entertaining as always, especially when you can use it to strategically pwnface your opponent. Also, I was rather impressed when the artillery and other explosions actually left craters in the ground.

Unfortunately, the environmental-damage system is far from flawless. Damage is not dynamic, meaning the destruction of structures revolves around different, pre-defined cutout points. For example, you might be able to blow a hole in one side of a building, but the other might be impenetrable because it has no cutout point. Still, it’s very impressive and adds a critical element to the gameplay.

As pleasing as the eye candy is in Bad Company, it’s not as satisfying as the game’s audio. In-game dialog sounds awesome, but equally-awesome are the gunshots and explosions. DICE really outdid themselves in this aspect of the game.

The beta features two contrasting maps – Oasis and Ascension – both showing off the flexibility of Frostbite. Oasis has a feel to it that will be very familiar to Battlefield 2 players or really anyone who has played any modern warfare games. It’s basically a farm in the middle of a desert with a river and a road connecting the farm to another cluster of buildings. It’s largely a vehicle-based map, featuring helicopters, Hummers, tanks and boats, so firefights can become quite hectic.

The second map, Ascension, is a more urban, close-quarters map. It’s also not located in the Middle East but rather somewhere presumably in Europe. Because of its tight dimensions, Ascension isn’t much of a vehicle map, although it has a few Humvees.

There is only one game mode in the beta, and it's something that’s been seen in many games before – attack and defend. That’s not to say that it’s bland (DICE mixes it up a bit by basing it off of attacking and defending gold stashes), but let’s just say that if it’s the only game mode that Bad Company ships with, it won’t follow in the footsteps of Call of Duty 4 in terms of stealing your girlfriend. I mean, you may piss her off, but you won't spend enough time on it to force her to steal half your stuff without you noticing. That is, should the other half be your TV and Xbox.

Speaking of which, the game features a leveling system similar to that of Call of Duty 4, although really, the system is the same as it has been in all BF games. As far as I know, there will be a rewards system that will award players with items as they progress in rank. What I don’t know is what exactly this rewards system will entail, but surely more advanced weaponry will be included.

There were a lot of glitches and technical issues that still needed to be addressed, but I won’t hold these against the game until I see a final product. From what I saw, Battlefield: Bad Company is shaping up very well. Although there are some distinct similarities between it and its Battlefield brethren, Bad Company is serving up something fresh to the series. It will be interesting to see what the campaign mode will encompass, and hopefully we’ll see some more variety in the online game modes. I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on a finished build of this game come June.

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