Battlefield: Bad Company Review
Played on Xbox One (base)
Developed by DICE
Released 23rd June 2008
Before I start to trash this game, it should be noted that I only experienced the campaign in order to write this review and that most of my thoughts on it are solely directed at the campaign. That being said, this has to be one of the worst first-person shooters I've ever played.
Story
The story of Battlefield: Bad Company is somewhat unique and interesting but presented in such a boring, vanilla format, that it felt painful playing through this game. Even when I tried getting invested in this rushed story, it was difficult. For not only the reasons such as the plain narrative being in the way but also the subtitles being absent making it harder to be engaged, especially when the protagonist’s narrations sound like he is bored. You play as Preston Marlowe, recently assigned to the Bad Company squad, composed of criminal troublemakers who are seen as expendable to the government. The squad hunts for the myth-based stash of mercenary gold while the Russo-American war ravages the fictional country of Serdaristan. This setting is indeed intriguing and could've led to a fantastic story but the lack of care for it, and how it is treated as an afterthought really dampened my experience.
Gameplay
The gameplay is repetitive and can be quite unfun. The weapons are quite limited to basics like assault rifles, LMGs, shotguns and snipers but even then, assault rifles are the only weapons to appear for 80% of the game with actual effectiveness and use. While the destructibility of the environment is amazing and unique throughout, the enemies themselves are clearly copied and pasted models of the protagonist and their accuracy range from constant missing to near-constant criticals that always end up hitting the player and never the AI companions which were virtually useless. The guns themselves have the audio advantage in this entire game as they sound powerful, but the feel, recoil and barrel flashing feel annoying and not at all immersive and the impact of each kill is nowhere to be found. The level design isn’t anything praiseworthy or pisstakingly bad, it's just overall average - and very videogame-y.
Characters
The characters are filler for dialogue and the comic-relief attempts are just full of sighs and head shakes as the comedy falls flat and comes across as more annoying content. The serious/non-comical characters are plain and generic war grunts that don’t have any depth or distinctive characteristics. The meant-to-be-menacing antagonist that only appears for like 2 scenes is never mentioned again and is both irrelevant and a sloppy attempt at character personality. Overall, I did not enjoy this trash.
Atmosphere
The atmosphere is decent at best, on a good day. While some imagery of a collapsing environment is impressive, the scenery surrounding it consists of bland trees and dull enemy bases. The occasional river or field comes and goes with subpar impressiveness, but it can’t save this game’s drab world. The music complements the characters in being generic military themes that are redundantly loud. I couldn’t go 5 minutes through this game without being bored of everything, from soundtracks, to sound effects, visual feats, characters or gameplay.
Story- 2/10
Gameplay- 4/10
Characters- 1/10
Atmosphere- 3/10
Terrible
Battlefield: Bad Company has officially earned its title of being the most boring game I've ever played.
