Battlefield: Bad Company
Posted by icebreakz on July 5, 2008
Battlefield: Bad Company (also known as BF:BC, or just Bad Company) is a first-p
erson shooter developed at EA DICE, released in the U.S. on June 23 2008 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game was hinted at just before the release of Battlefield 2,and then announced sixteen months later.
Bad Company puts the player in a fictional war against the Russian Federation, where players will lead a squad of AWOL soldiers fighting both Russians and mercenaries.
Bad Company applies some new features to the franchise, including an environment that can be almost entirely destroyed, and a single-player storyline. The single player campaign and some multiplayer maps take place in the fictional Eastern European country of Serdaristan.
Story
The storyline of Battlefield: Bad Company revolves around a particular 4-man squad of military misfits during a fictional war in the near-future that pits America against the Russian Federation. This squad is one of the many groups of its kind found in the 222nd Army battalion, more commonly known as “Bad Company”. This company is comprised of the insubordinate and often incompetent troublemakers whose use in the battlefield are limited to the role of cannon fodder.
The men in that particular squad, however, feel that they deserve more respect than they end up receiving, and all of that culminates in them going AWOL and pursuing their own quest.
The squad consists of Private Preston Marlowe, the player-controlled protagonist, Private Terrence Sweetwater, a brainy, analytical soldier who, all-in-all is afraid of fighting and serves as the foil for Private George Gordon Haggard Jr., a.k.a “Haggard”. Haggard is the comic, in-your-face soldier whose love of fire and explosions made him a soldier, but also landed him in Bad Company. Naturally, he is the squads demolitions “expert”. At the head of the squad is Sergeant Samuel D. Redford (although a video trailer refers to the sergeant as “Clarence Redford”). Unlike most soldiers in B-Company, Sergeant Redford volunteered for the position after an agreement to cut his tour of duty short if he accepted. Eager and very much content to leave the war to “go fishing”, he always takes up the chance to remind Haggard and Sweetwater that their lives will soon stop being his responsibility.
At the end of the first mission that Preston and the rest complete, Sweetwater stumbles upon the body of a mercenary from the group called the “Legionnaires”. They operate under the “Legionnaire”, and their slogan is a Latin phrase “Acta Non Verba”, or “Action Not Words”. Sweetwater continues to tell the squad about the mercenaries and how they are possibly the deadliest army in the world. Redford dismisses Sweetwater’s claims as “campfire tales”, and Haggard seems generally indifferent. Sweetwater, however, continues citing things he has heard about the Legionnaires, and mentions how each mercenary is reportedly paid in solid gold bars. Haggard then excitedly turns around and moves toward the body, suggesting he “checks for a pulse in his pockets”. After a few seconds of hurried searching, Haggard rises and exclaims as he fishes out a gold bar from the dead mercenary’s pockets. The squad then splits the bar 4 ways and goes back to work, though Haggard is convinced that more gold awaits them. Curiosity draws them from their second mission when they spot more mercenaries loading a supply truck. As the truck drives off, a gold bar falls from it, convincing the squad to pursue the vehicle. The truck ends up driving past the border into a fictional Eastern European country called Serdaristan. Because Serdaristan is neutral in the conflict between America and Russia, the squad is unable to pursue the trucks any further. Haggard, however, loses control of himself with the promise of gold and begins to excitedly fire his shotgun in the air while yelling “there’s gold in them hills!” He runs past the shocked squad and single-handedly invades a neutral country.
Because of this, Redford orders the squad to pursue Haggard in order to prevent him from causing any more damage. When they get a hold of Haggard, Mike-One-Juliet, the squad’s mission coordinator, calls Redford on the radio and reprimands him for their invasion. She specifically says that Redford, who was one day away from retirement, would be subject to a court martial for Haggard’s offense and their subsequent invasion into neutral soil which would cause Redford’s military term to be significantly raised. Hesitantly, Redford decides that there is little else for their squad to do other than run, and since Haggard could point them in the direction of the mercenaries’ gold, they have their destination. They reach a harbour, where the U.S army catches up to them, ordering them to drop their weapons and surrender. On the next mission however, it turns out that a deal was struck, and the squad would have charges dropped if they investigate Serdaristan. Since the squad was officially AWOL, the U.S army would not be directly responsible if they were captured. The squad was then given orders to capture the president of Serdaristan. However, after the squad had reached the president, the squad’s mission coordinator informed the squad that they could not be given an evacuation, and was told to escape on their own. This led to the president helping them escape by his own personal Mil Mi-24 helicopter on the roof of the palace.
Features
Destructible Environments
The Frostbite game engine allows 90% of the environment to be destroyed, including buildings, vegetation, vehicles, and even the ground itself, and more. Still, for gameplay purposes, the frames of buildings and other objects will remain indestructible, to prevent the environment from becoming completely flat. Additionally, the game will feature dynamic lighting to correlate with the changing environment.
Classes
In a move similar to Battlefield 2142, the number of soldier ranks will be lowered, resulting in a combination of the classic soldier classes. The classes in this game are: Assault, Demolitions, Recon, Specialist, and Support.
Weapons
The Battlefield Bad Company Beta has an arsenal of available infantry firearms, including three handguns. The M9 pistol for the U.S., the MP443 for the Russians and a high-powered revolver for the Mid Eastern force. These three handguns are only available for the Recon (Sniper) class.
Several pieces of equipment are available to the infantry, including anti-tank mines, remote charges, mortar attack designators, laser guided missile, anti-vehicle missile launchers (RPG-7 or AT4) and grenade launchers such as the M203 and the GP-25.
The Battlefield Bad Company Beta contains 20 locked guns, 10 can be unlocked through playing the game, while 5 of the other 10 will be unlocked in free promotions before and after release. The remaining 5 unlockable weapons will only be made available through purchase of the Gold Edition of the game or by achieving the final rank (level 25).
Vehicles
Battlefield: Bad Company has an assortment of Land, Air, and Sea vehicles, including AH-64 Apache, UH-60 Black Hawk, Mil Mi-24 Hind MK III, Ka-52 Hokum, Mi-28 Havoc, T-90, GAZ-3937, M1A2 Abrams, Otokar Cobra, M3A3 Bradley, BMD-3, HMMWV, Golf cart, and Desert Patrol Vehicles.
Single Player
There are seven missions in the single player campaign. Each mission in the game is said to last between 1-2 hours. Throughout each mission are hidden gold bars that can be discovered, but this is not a required task, much like Halo 3’s skulls, Call of Duty 4’s intel items, or Grand Theft Auto 4’s flying rats (pigeons).
Upon the player’s death, they are able to respawn without penalty. However in missions where the player can fail an objective (for example preventing the enemy crossing a bridge), if the player fails then they must restart from the last checkpoint, rather than respawning.
Multiplayer
Multiplayer supports up to 24 players, and runs on PC-dedicated servers.Gold Rush is the only multiplayer mode included in the initial release of Battlefield: Bad Company but another mode, Conquest will be released for free in a future update. The setup of the game is an Attackers vs. Defenders scenario, in which one team must defend two crates filled with gold while the other team attempts to destroy the crates. Once the crates are destroyed, more of the map is available to fight on with new crates appearing, along with added reinforcement numbers. The attacking team has a limited amount of respawns to achieve their goal of capturing the 2-4 gold stashes either by setting charges or simply destroying the 2 crates of gold at each base. The defending team has an unlimited amount of respawns available, but their goal is to exhaust the attacking teams respawns.
The Conquest game mode will be returning in Bad Company due to overwhelming requests from players during the beta testing. This mode will be available as a free download post-launch, however there has been no date announced for it’s release.
Awards
Online, players can earn different types of awards. Trophies are awarded for multiple kills in a certain class, kills to defend an objective and for other team-related actions. These can be awarded to the player multiple times during the game. Patches can be earned for gaining certain trophies and then completing certain criteria in an online match. Patches can only be awarded once to a player. Wildcards are awarded once to a player for a combination of many different criteria. These are harder than trophies and patches to unlock. In addition to these in-game awards, the game is compatible with achievements for the Xbox 360. It has not been confirmed whether or not the game will support trophies on the PlayStation 3.
| Unlockable | How to Unlock |
|---|---|
| Always get paid in gold bars (15) | Complete ‘Welcome To Bad Company’ on normal |
| Action, not words! (25) | Complete ‘Welcome To Bad Company’ on hard |
| Not even a nugget! (15) | Complete ‘Acta Non Verba’ on normal |
| Where are they going so fast? (25) | Complete ‘Acta Non Verba’ on hard |
| You and what army? (15) | Complete ‘Crossing Over’ on normal |
| Say goodbye to the gold! (25) | Complete ‘Crossing Over’ on hard |
| He might come in handy (15) | Complete ‘Par for the Course’ on normal |
| Cart Wheels (25) | Complete ‘Par for the Course’ on hard |
| Hold on! (15) | Complete ‘Air Force One’ on normal |
| Russia? (25) | Complete ‘Air Force One’ on hard |
| Let´s take that boat (15) | Complete ‘Crash and Grab’ on normal |
| Capitalist pigs, very nice (25) | Complete ‘Crash and Grab’ on hard |
| You found it you keep it (15) | Find 5 unique collectables |
| Half way thru (20) | Find half of all collectables |
| Staying Alive (15) | Complete one mission without dying (any difficulty) |
| Killer on the loose (25) | Kill 25 enemies |
| Sir, yes sir! (30) | Complete ‘Ghost Town’ on normal |
| Here is your DD-214 (30) | Complete ‘Ghost Town’ on hard |
| Death From Above (20) | Kill 25 enemies in a helicopter |
| Home Wrecker (15) | Destroy 200 walls |
| The Hypochondriac (20) | Use Auto Injector 50 Times |
| Manic Lumberjack (15) | Knock down a small forest |
| The Anti-Mechanic (20) | Destroy 50 vehicles. (containing enemy AI) |
| Been There, Drove That! (20) | Drive all vehicle types (Jeep, Tank, Heli, Boat) |
| One In a Million (20) | Hit hostile helicopter with laser designator |
| Clean sweep (25) | Find all collectables |
| I Love Gold! (10) | Find one gold bar |
| Check My Grill (20) | Find half of the gold bars |
| Gold Digger (30) | Find all gold bars |
| On Top of The World (20) | Climb to the highest spot in the game |
| Get me started (15) | (Online) Participate in one online match (Ranked) |
| Leatherneck (25) | (Online) Play 100 online matches |
| Never Used a Door (15) | (Online) Destroy 1000 walls |
| Forest Ranger (15) | (Online) Knock down 1000 trees |
| With My Devil Dogs (15) | (Online) Use Squad in the menu, find a friend and play one round |
| There is no I in Squad (15) | (Online) Have 20 Squad members spawn on you without dying in a single round |
| Dog owner! (20) | (Online) Collect 5 unique dog tags |
| Get the dog! (20) | (Online) Collect 50 unique dog tags |
| Be the best (20) | (Online) Place #1 in a ranked match |
| Vehikill (20) | (Online) Get at least one kill in every vehicle |
| Specialist (10) | (Online) Reach Rank 3 |
| Master Sergeant (15) | (Online) Reach Rank 8 |
| Colonel (25) | (Online) Reach Rank 20 |
| Beans Bullets Bandages (30) | (Online) Get 10002 kills |
| Ooh Rah (20) | (Online) Achieve half of all awards |
| I am Bad Company! (25) | (Online) Achieve all the awards |
| Darwin’s Parachute (10) | (Online) Glide in the parachute for 3 seconds |
| Catch The ‘Bad’ Moment (15) | (Online) Take 3 pictures using the image system |
| Drive By (25) | (Online) 100 kills using vehicle |
| General of the Army (35) | (Online) Reach Rank 25 |
