Often because of the squad system you tend to not take much notice of what the rest of your team are actually doing, as you’re almost always spawned right next to your favourite buddies, letting you concentrate more on pairing up with one or two good friends for some deliciously sneaky tactics. It’s in these moments that Bad Company springs to life: With the help of your squad mates you’ll manage to take out both objectives as you easily stave off the flow of forces arriving to stop your diabolical plans. These minor moments of greatness feel incredible. You’ve beaten the odds, defied expectations. You might not be at the top of the scoreboards, and you might have a terrible kill to death ratio, but by god; you really made a difference back there, soldier.
It’s easy at a first glance to dismiss Bad Company as nothing more than a poor man’s Call of Duty 4, but this suggestion whilst understandable couldn’t be further from the truth. Fast paced and thrilling, COD is a fantastic pick up and play online game, but the intensity of the experience can often leave the experience feeling a little solitary. You can happily play Bad Company alone too - going away from the crowd on a one man mission – but whack on the headset and get some mates onboard and you’re looking at one of the finest team based shooters on the market. Unlike COD’s ‘go on son, chin up, get back in there’ insta-spawn system, in Battlefields you’ve got serious ground to cover to get back into the fray, and if your whole squad gets wiped out then you’ve all got a long walk back to the frontlines. Your squad represents much more than just the guys you’re not supposed to shoot; they’ll watch your back; avenge your demise; secure the area; bring you back from the edge of death; give their life to provide a few moments of precious distraction. It’s a team game – not just a game with teams in it.
The single player campaign is nothing to write home about, and it certainly doesn’t merit a purchase if you’re weighing it up based on that alone. Unavoidably the multiplayer mode is currently plagued by the usual influx of idiotic players: Support classes who seem uninterested in healing or repairing stuff, amidst a posse of more snipers than any team could ever hope to need, for starters. But once this chaff begins to clear, the future for Bad Company seems pretty bright. Providing an unbelievably addictive and exciting team experience for gamers who enjoy a healthy portion of strategy with their FPS pie. When played online with a couple of close friends Battlefields: Bad Company is a glorious experience, and if you’re the kind of 360 owner who was sold on the idea of Xbox Live by the imagined potential of coordinating flawless military attacks with a group of close friends, it’s quite simply a title you can’t afford to miss. Understated and meaty, Bad Company is a genuine summer drought treat.
