Battlefield: Bad Company Beta Impressions
Title: Battlefield: Bad Company
Platform: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Digital Illusions CE
ESRB Rating: T for Teen
Release Date: June 28, 2008
Recently Electronic Arts launched an Xbox 360 multiplayer beta test for the upcoming first-person shooter Battlefield: Bad Company. Limited to only 5,000 players, the beta offered two maps and one gameplay mode. Tom's Games got a chance to snag one of those exclusive keys and check out what the latest title in the Battlefield franchise had to offer. Unfortunately, for PC gamers, Bad Company will be a console-exclusive title only available for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Sporting a swank new graphics engine, new gameplay features and an in-depth, cinematic single-player campaign, the multiplayer beta offers a meaty taste of what's to come. It also fixes some of the issues that were already addressed for the final release before the beta launched ("think of the beta as a snapshot of where the team was a few months ago," reported EA). Still, from what we've played so far, Bad Company looks to take up the throne as the 2008 Console Game of the Year.
Is that an over-exaggeration? Hell no.
Visually, the game was stunning, featuring detailed textures and believable, realistic terrains (stretching from 1x1km to 4x4km). Player models sported some hefty details in their clothing and armor, feeling solid and textured to the touch. Walking up to the shoreline, you could see the bank slowly descend into the murky depths of the river. Dynamic lighting defined the mood of the stage, whether it's the deep greens of the mountains or the bright yellow and orange hues of the desert. The ground looked genuinely littered with wavering grass, solid debris, rocks, tire tracks, and whatnot. Buildings could be destroyed and trees toppled over to the ground.
That's right: destructible. Bad Company features an extensive destructible environment, something that's brand new to the Battlefield franchise. Just hop in a tank and you can do some serious structural damage to buildings. Load up the hefty rocket launcher and you can take out a portion of the wall in a huge cloud of chunky debris and particles. Can anyone say instant doorway? Still, what you won't see in Bad Company is total annihilation; Digital Illusions CE (DICE) designed the maps to be somewhere around 90% destructible in order to keep the terrains from looking too flat. With that said, it was easy to makeshift a unique path outside the normal avenues without the use of a bulldozer.
Battlefield: Bad Company features strong visuals with detailed character models and rich envirnoments, which can be almost entirely destroyed.
DICE and EA actually played it smart by including the two featured maps in the beta, one a stark contrast to the other. The maps showcased the new Frostbite Engine and what it could pull off (check out the Frostbite Engine video demo). In "Ascension," a humid, dense atmosphere gave the mountain village a damp, claustrophobic feel, ramping up the intensity as soldiers moved between small houses. The sultry skyline casts dark shadows onto the buildings, making good cover in those oh-so-fine sniper moments; campers made excellent use of dark corners as well. On the other hand, in "Oasis," the barren, hot Middle-Eastern sky left you feeling exposed in the wide, open terrain laced with palm trees, a river and all the dry sand you could eat. This large map, probably 4x4km in size, gave way to vehicular combat including tanks, Hummers, boats and helicopters. It was difficult not to stop and look around at all the visual goodness. But then again, sightseeing only meant instant death.
Outside the outstanding graphics, the gameplay rocked to no end. As previously mentioned, the beta offered one gameplay mode: "Gold Rush." The object was for the defending team to keep its two crates of gold intact. If the two crates were destroyed, then an additional section of the map opened up and the opposing team had to destroy those new crates as well. The round ended when all of the defending team's crates were destroyed or the opposing team defeated. While the setup sounded simple, the size of the maps and the included toys made things a bit more challenging in the overall picture; Ascension was small and condensed overall, while Oasis had wide terrain featuring narrow alleys and scattered outposts. Imagine slipping across the hot desert floor and finding yourself in a heap of bloody death as helicopter missiles show you a good time. Imagine yourself huddled next to your crate of gold and a tank comes smashing through the wall. Imagine the exhilarating feel of dancing across rooftops and gunning down everyone on the street. It's all good.
What was also good was the fact that the Bad Company server was not player-hosted, but a stand-alone dedicated server, thus there was hardly any lag and no threats of client drops. This also meant that the game could host up to 24 players (although the beta only offered a maximum of 18). I found some goofiness going on with the beta's voice chat: namely, it didn't really work, and upon digging around the EA forums, plenty of gamers had the same problems. There will be no lobby for gamers to wait impatiently in, so players will be able to dive-bomb into the action instantly, choosing either to spawn at the home base or alongside comrades. Than again, there was a short re-spawn wait, perhaps 15 to 20 seconds long in order to synchronize the player with the server or for players to change classes before re-spawning onto the map.
The Bad Company beta included several classes to choose from: Assault, Demolitions, Recon, Specialist, and Support. Each class should speak for itself; however it was certainly possible to pick up a dropped Demolitions package while previously equipped with the Assault rifle. The scoring system in Bad Company was based on individual actions. For instance, killing an enemy gave the player 10 points. A headshot brought an extra three-point bonus whereas assisting the squad brought in an additional five points.
Bad Company has an assortment of vehicles to use, from tanks to helicopters. Some of the vehicles, however, were a little difficult to control.
There was also a ranking-up system where players received experience points and earned credits to unlock extra goodies like weapons and devices. This may come across as intimidating, especially for newer players coming onto the battlefield with virgin trigger fingers. But according to DICE, "the matchmaking system caters to a balanced experience." Xbox Live Marketplace will also offer additional weapons and items to purchase as well when the game launches this June.
And as for the actual weapons and vehicles, everything was a blast to play (no pun intended). The helicopter took some getting used to, and the heavy tank was even more challenging to figure out. If you jump on the EA forums you'll see a plethora of posts complaining about weapon and vehicle balance, and if you're lucky, you'll even hear a few gamers shout into your headphone about issues that EA and DICE were initially aware of and corrected in the final release.
Still, there was nothing like operating the wheel of a jeep while someone else jumped in behind the turret gunning down enemy soldiers. The Assault class felt like the default player package, packed with an awesome grenade launcher as the alternate firing mechanism. Firing the rocket launcher never felt so good, and there was an ultimate inner peace when the Specialist smacked an enemy with a tracer dart and the Demolitions crew came in and cleaned house with homing missiles. Raining enemy territory with helicopter rockets made me just as giddy.
Needless to say, I rather liked this Bad Company beta. Granted playing the same objective got old after awhile, EA's brief tease of multiplayer goodness got us wanting more to say the least. It will be interesting to see what the single-player campaign will offer. However, there's little doubt that Bad Company will be one of the hottest games of the summer and perhaps the entire year. While the multiplayer portion obviously has the goods, let's cross our fingers that the single-player campaign doesn't topple this Game of the Year candidate - and let's pray we eventually get a PC version of Bad Company sooner rather than later.
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