BATTLEFIELD: BAD COMPANY
This game has had a fair few teaser trailers and they all gave the impression this game would be a fun game and would play well, and I have to say the people at EA DICE have delivered, which holds good hope for their next big release, Mirror's Edge.
This is a game is a First Person Shooter (FPS) which is an established genre, also is a war based FPS so again an established concept, but yet this game is very good and doesn't ooze the expected same old same old.
The premise of game is, you play a character called Preston who has been assigned to unit with three others, within the US army, and are part of B Company, which is nicknamed Bad Company as most of the recruits within this company are criminals being given a second chance, but are in the eyes of the government, what we'd call them is, Cannon Fodder. B Company is usually sent in before the commandos.
Whilst fighting in an undefined war against the Russians, you and your three colleagues happen across a dead soldier and discover he is a mercenary and has a gold iggot on his person. One of your colleagues reveals that his uniform logo belongs to an army that pays it's members with gold bars. The four of you decide to find this person and relieve him of his gold.
This may sound familar...especailly if's you seen the film The Three Kings, yes it would seem this games plot was straight out of hollywood. The good thing is, at least it's not a movie tie game, so is thus a good game.
Gameplay
This for me is all about picking up a game plugging in without reading the instructions, and this game handled that pretty well, though a few of the controls were a little fiddly, in that you have you main weapon, which was controlled with R1 and R2... but then your secondary weapon and your health syringe were controlled with L2, but once selected you had to press R1 to use them, which was often a mare in the heat of battle with your health about to be drained. For Gameplay, this gets a high 8/10.
Content
This for me would be the storyline and for this game, I would say the storyline was ok although clearly inspired by the film Three Kings. The dialogue between the four main characters was brilliant and very funny at times. There was a slight flaw I felt in the story, though only a small one, there is a point in the game you are alone and it seems your pals have been captured, you need to mount a rescue... when you eventually find them, they are fully armed and equiped, so it looks like they weren't captured, so did they just leave you to die, that issue was just glossed over. For content I'd have to give this a low 9/10.
Simulation
Here is where there were some flaws in the game. This game had a radar which would give you an idea where the enemy was so once all the red dots had disappeared then you could move to the checkpoint, but there were a few times in the game where there were no red dots on the radar but the checkpoint wouldn't trip, so you had sweep the area with a fine toothcomb and suddenly you'd bump into an enemy soldier standing behind a building. There were a couple of other times when you'd have five or six red dots on the map and you'd make a hopeful dash to the checkpoint and it would trip thus ending that mission. The map was very open and vast, in terms of getting to a check point you could either use the roads or drive cross country, you could walk and run all the way there or find some wheels and drive so that was pretty cool. There were a few times the AI was out to lunch, but in terms of the other three characters having your back in a firefight, they weren't the best at all, so that needs work. It's a shame but I'd have to give this game a low 8/10 for simulation.
Music
The music in this was very good, it did add value to the game. If you've seen the film platoon and the way the tunes in that film added value, the music in this game was of a similar ilk. For music this game would have to get an 8/10.
Graphics
The graphics in this game were ok, very good in fact, though they weren't Assassin Creed, Drakes Fortune or Metal Gear Solid quality, but they were very good. As an EA linked title you do expect a certain quality of Graphics and taking that into account the graphics were typical EA quality,but they weren't ground breaking, that said the whole environment was destructable. The joy of sitting in a helicopter and just laying waste to an outpost, then landing on the outskirts and walking into essentially a ghost town because your aerial bombardment and destroyed all building and hidden enemies, the graphics were done well for that. So the graphics get a low 9/10.
Pros of B:BC
In my opinion the only Pros for this game is the fact the online gaming is very very good. It's easy to join a game and easy to invite pals. The Stats tracking is really good, though would have been better if they were trophy linked. The voice acting was good quality and very funny.
Cons of B:BC
There are a couple of con to this game, one being something I mentioned before, the glitches where the checkpoint won't trip due a man you can't see being out there, or it does trip even though your surrounded by enemies. One massive issue I did have was I had a 5 - 10 second period whilst playing online where the lag was so bad I had to put the controller and down and leave it for a while. This only happened once over the three of four times I went online, so it could have been a one off.
OVERALL DJTC SCORE
This game gets a solid 8/10