tommy_lop's Full Review: Battlefield: Bad Company Gold Edition for Xbox 360
I downloaded Battlefield bad company off the xbox live market place, there new games on demand have some of there older discounted 360 games available for download. The nice thing is it’s on the hard drive no disc to load, bad thing no refunds (I feel sorry for any poor sap who downloaded Sonic the hedgehog 360). So is battle field bad company worth the non refundable, non sellable 20 dollar price tag, or is it just a bad game.
Story You play the role of Preston one of 4 misfits from bad company, the company the military sends soldiers who have misbehaved, and are consider expendable by the army. While on a raid mission Preston and his fellow members find gold on a mercenary and decide to go awol and try to steal the gold.
The story is ok it has a few twist but it’s pretty formulaic for the most part. It tries to inject humor while Marlow is silent except for cut scenes you will hear the banter of Sweetwater, Haggard, and the Redford, all of them fitting comedy army stereotypes that have been seen in movies before. Haggard is the explosives expert who is also a psychopathic southerner. Sweetwater is the nerdy computer geek who never shuts up. And the Redford is pretty much the leader of the group who is about to retire. Seen these guys before and heard similar jokes so there banter gets pretty old. The game won’t let you shoot them but occasionally you can hurl a grenade at them and listen to them complain about there ears.
Graphics. The graphics are only so-so. They get the job done but the colors are pretty flat (yeah I realize it’s a 1st person shooter war game but it doesn’t have to look so bland.) and the character faces can get pretty freaky sometimes especially close up. The game also doesn’t mind recycling environments like houses making the game feel a bit repeative. The games graphics are ok but I have seen better.
Sound The voice actors do a good job in there various parts even if they are 2 dimensional stereotypes and try to dish out the old jokes has bet has possible. Some good music plays but like most 1st person shooters it’s drone out by the sound of gun fire.
Gameplay. The game plays like your typical 1st person shooter, kill any bad guys that pop up and try to accomplish your objectives. The usual apply, get to a certain area, guard a person or a thing, or destroy a person or a thing. The game controls work out well enough with the LB and RB buttons switching between weapons and tools, and the Y to use your instant kill melee knife.
To make things interesting you can only carry 1 weapon, and 1 tool (not counting the health restoring injection needle). Each weapon comes with what ever gun that is plus a grenade launcher that will be needed to destroy walls and bigger enemies. Tools include things like rocket launchers, c4, laser designators, and a power drill to repair vehicles. Pretty much everything except the drill makes a boom somewhere, and usually is used on tanks or if you need to demolish an entire building in a hurry.
The game has 3 levels of challenge but each one of them is pretty easy. Don’t get me wrong it’s a lot easier to die on hard then it is on easy more bad guys and there bullets do a lot more damage on hard then they do easy. But dying on this is only a little more annoying then Lego star wars. In less your on an escort mission when you die you pop up at the last check point but nothing is reset. All walls, enemies and vehicles destroyed stay destroyed so while you do have the annoyance of sometimes walking a bit of a distance dying doesn’t set you back at all.
Each level has side objects to that come in two forms. Collecting all the guns and holding them for a second to get the collection bonus. And of course finding crates full of gold. There are achievements for finding these things so achievement nuts will obviously go back through stages again to find them all. Online The online saves this game from being mediocre. Basically the game is capture the flag, or in this case destory the gold chest. Basically you got two teams the atttacker who is out to destory the gold chest, and the defender who has to defend them. The attackers get a bit more hard ware but they only have a limited amount of respawns.
Rather then it being a weapon collecting melee you get to choose your class and that limit’s the weapons. An assault will have the machine gun and health injections found in the game. While a demolitions will have a shot gun and bazooka. Different tools to unlock has you gain experience and level up. EXP will come whenever you kill someone on the opposing team, or help out your team like fixing vehicles. Bonus points can be come by collecting dog tags by killing opponents using your short range knifes. The game is a bit of addictive fun, it’s no Halo but the one mode if offers makes it fun.
One big gripe though is that it’s hard to get started especially since a lot of people playing will have unlocked the best weapons either by leveling up or spending money to buy the gold version with all of them unlock. It kind of feels at first like your armed with a Beebe gun against a howitzer.
Achievements. The single player has achievements for beating stages on medium and hard difficulty, and collecting gold and special guns. The multiplayer ones are a bit more strange getting achievements for destroying trees, buildings. You also get achievements for leveling up, collecting dog tags, and killing a lot of enemy soilders all together.
Final recommendation. You can do a lot worse for 20 bucks then battlefield bad company but there are better FPS out there. And if you choose to download it there is no trading or selling it so that may be a factor if your going to use MS games on demand or not.
DICE's bleeding-edge Frostbite game engine / Multiplayer Gold Rush game mode supporting up to 24 players online / ESRB T for TeensMore at J&R Music and Computer World
Learn more about Battlefield: Bad Company - Xbox 360. (Flash demo) SynopsisA band of renegade soldiers prowls through a dangerous landscape, risking e...More at Best Buy ®
The next entry in the successful Battlefield franchise, Battlefield: Bad Company is the first designed specifically for next-gen consoles.More at Family Video
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